♪
Oh, what do I love boxing?
Um... I think it reveals character of who you are.
I wake up every morning, just, I can't wait to start.
Working with the boxers, you know,
and working with people I used to watch on TV.
Announcer: There's a straight left hand...
Lomachenko fires away!
(match bell)
Great fight!
Vasyl Lomachenko, he's a three-weight world champion.
He was my favourite boxer, you know,
somebody I looked up to.
So working with him now is a dream.
He's gonna be fighting in Madison Square Garden,
which is known as the Mecca of boxing.
We've got a partnership in a clothing brand,
so if he wins, it increases our exposure.
♪
I owe the sport a lot, and I think that's
the reason why I work so hard.
Loma winning is part of that journey,
it's just the start.
♪
Radio: See, that's the thing with time.
Money, it'll come and go, but time, time is...
(radio volume down, indistinct) (toothbrush buzzing)
(quiet) ...once it's gone, it is gone.
(clear) And so, when you think of every hour,
every minute you wish you'd had back,
you'll realize why our mornings are so important.
You gotta hit the ground running.
I think waking up early gives me a mental advantage.
I just feel like while my competitors are sleeping,
you know, I'm up, working.
And it just gives me a better outlook.
I was never the smart kid, or the, you know,
the strongest or fastest kid, but I always--
I had the mental strength.
I was always willing to work harder than anyone else.
(exhales)
Started boxing at the age of 12.
You know, I was getting into a little bit of trouble in school,
and definitely realized that I needed to be able
to look after myself.
I think it comes down to just not fitting in,
as a kid, you know.
One, because of the colour of my skin.
And two, because we just didn't have a lot.
♪
My neighbourhood wasn't--
I wouldn't say it was a poor hood.
It was definitely sort of working class.
But I think the difference was that the kids,
they had a lot more than I did,
in the sense of, you know, what they get for Christmas,
the sort of clothes they'd wear, the trainers, the backpacks.
(exhales)
So, I always grew up with a chip on my shoulder,
you know, wanting to fit in and that,
that feeling of not quite having what other people had,
and I couldn't really do a lot about it.
Or, at least that was my, you know, mindset then.
My neighbourhood was all white.
Me and my brother, we were the only brown people there.
That definitely helped me gravitate
towards boxing, you know.
It made me less of an easy target if they knew that
I wasn't prepared to sort of back down.
(exhales)
I started purely to try to learn how to fight.
And, within, you know, a few weeks of being in there and
then going back to school, I realized that it wasn't
about being able to actually fight.
(exhales)
It was the confidence it gave you, you know,
being the bigger man.
(grunts)
You know, and it's the same in business:
you put the work in and then the results will show.
♪
And BOXRAW, you're missing BOXRAW.
BOXRAW has seven employees here in Coventry.
And, around three or four in the States.
When I first realized that I needed to launch BOXRAW,
I thought it would take me three minutes to launch.
You know, I was so delusional thinking that
I'd just create this clothing brand and people
were gonna come there.
Well, I was very much a one-man band.
I was doing everything from the Photoshops,
the website, to the designing of the clothes,
the pick and packing.
Pick it up to this.
You know, we only had our first employee
about seven months ago.
I think BOXRAW filled a void.
We looked at boxing as a journey rather than a destination.
Nobody was fixated on the journey.
They were more just fixated on the fight night.
Why aren't you talking about the struggle, you know?
The 5 am runs?
Why aren't you talking about the mental strain it has on you?
It didn't represent boxing as what I knew it to be.
♪
What's going on?
I just want you to make sure...
(indistinct speaking)
Then do it this way instead 'cause that's
the most important information.
That way.
♪
Can we get some of these boxes made up...?
There are so many orders.
I don't even know where to start.
♪
This is an order, right? I think so.
♪
So, this is the new Loma line dropping
in preparation for his fight.
So...
These are the new bad boys.
Got matching orange print with the metal ends.
And then, same sort of detailing on the back.
Vasyl Lomachenko, he's a three-weight world champion.
Two-time gold medalist, and arguably the best and
greatest boxer to have ever lived.
The guy has had 397 amateur fights.
He's lost once. He's statistically got the
greatest amateur record in history.
I reached out to his agent to see if they were
interested in a sponsorship deal.
I think I offered him $700 a month for a sponsorship and,
to which the agent laughed at me. He said,
"He's turning down millions of dollars a year in endorsements
and you want me to get back to him with a deal of 700...
$700 a month?" I said, "Man, that's all I've got."
(laughs)
So, I said, "Can I send the gear to you?"
He said, "Yes."
Um, sent it in a few weeks later.
I woke up to a photo of him wearing the gear.
His Loma range is similar to the sort of
initial early days with his Nike Jordan partnership,
or at least, that's how I've envisioned all this.
He's fighting for unification belts
against Jose Pedraza.
I'm just happy that the world are able to see
what he's capable of.
♪
Him winning naturally increases our exposure.
(indistinct speaking)
- Please don't forget. - Yeah, I know, Dad.
When did you say you're going to New York again?
I'm leaving on Wednesday morning.
- This Wednesday? - No, next Wednesday.
Next Wednesday. And what are you going to do there?
Ah...
- Loma's fighting, isn't he? - Huh?
- Loma's fighting. - Yeah.
- On the Saturday, so... - Uh-huh.
Ben started working with me
when he was in the high school, basically.
He used to come here to clean and do odd jobs.
I remember working for my dad every summer holiday.
Purely because I wanted to buy the nice shoes for
the next year, and I worked for the whole summer,
from 8:30 to 5:30, six days a week.
After getting the wages, it worked out so
I got less than a pound an hour.
I think it was at that point I realized that if I wanna,
if I want anything, I'll have to do it myself.
(indistinct speaking)
He always had a bit of a hustling streak on him.
He was... little business man
from the, from school time.
If I leave anything on the side, it will--
he'll sell it on eBay.
I set up an eBay account at the age of 15 and
I started buying things in bulk.
I'd buy watches for about £6,
sell them for £40 in school.
I'd call phone shops and say, "I'm a business owner,
I'm interested in buying a hundred phones.
I'm gonna send my son to the store.
He'll pick up the phones."
I'd be buying clothes in bulk.
DVDs, MP4 players, actually.
I used to get damaged cars, repair them and then sell them.
It's as simple as that. It's a horrible trade.
A customer called me once and after a
long conversation he said, "Oh, you know what,
it's really great just to speak to an English person
on the phone. I hate going to all these Pakis
and they're selling these dodgy cars."
I said, "Sir, I need to tell you I'm brown," and ah...
Yeah, he hung up the phone. (laughs)
So when it first started...
The boxing was run out of here.
So I'd be changing oil filters by the day and then
packing orders by the night.
And all this area here we converted into a warehouse.
The roof used to leak and all these beams,
when the rain used to come, there was holes in the roof,
which he had to fill. And then,
we couldn't even fix the roof because of asbestos,
so we had to just keep filling it, as you can see.
But it did the job, you know.
There was enough space and fortunately,
six months ago, we grew out of it.
Everyone said I was crazy in the early days.
You know, "You're making so much money with the cars,
why are you gonna go into selling clothing?
Who's gonna buy a boxing clothing brand?" But...
I realized, okay, I made, you know...
over a million in my second year with the car sales,
putting decent effort in.
Why don't I put 100% into this and see,
see what I'm capable of.
♪
Ben, the food's ready.
I live with my mum. It's just me and her.
If I wasn't there, it would be very hard for me to
sort of work at the same rate that I'm working
just because she, every single day,
there's dinner on the table, washing's done,
you know, I'm very fortunate in that regard.
There's not many 27 year olds living with their mum,
having them cook and clean for them.
So what did you do this morning?
Ah, this, what did I do this morning?
The warehouse, it's crazy.
We still haven't finished packing.
I'm sorry I can't help.
Not that you'd want me there anyway.
So, have you booked your tickets?
Yeah, I booked them last week. I'm leaving on Wednesday.
So, when you get to New York,
what meetings have you got?
Influencers, boxers, managers...
Some business owners.
Um, it's gonna be a tight schedule.
So these people, have you met them before?
Some of them...
But a lot of them over the internet.
So, are they sort of like positive about BOXRAW,
or have you got to try and persuade them?
Yeah, it's not so much that I'm going there to sell something,
but just see what can be done.
Mhm, so where are you staying?
- Opposite MSG, actually. - Where?
- Opposite MSG. - What's an MSG?
MSG, the Madison Square Garden.
- Oh, I see. - Where the fight is.
I don't know all these short term lingo.
I was surprised to learn that Ben was going down
the route of sort of a boxing clothing line, but...
I thought it was a brilliant idea, as well, that,
you know, he, he found a niche in the market and
was sort of going for it. And that's Ben.
Ben is one of these people that just seems to have a
knack to know what the niche-- You know,
find an opening, and he's not afraid to have a go.
Gonna go up and get some work done.
Okay. I'll do this; don't worry.
Alright, cheers.
♪
Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to the
Hulu Theater here at Madison Square Garden in New York.
(cheering)
Now, ladies and gentlemen, here he is,
the WBA world champion from Ukraine,
a three-weight division pound-for-pound star.
Crowd: (chants) Loma! Loma!
...two-time Olympic gold medalist in his
12th world title appearance, ladies and gentlemen...
And we're actually finally working with
ESPN and Top Rank, and all these big players.
It's completely new to me.
In BOXRAW, the relationship with Loma is...
one of a partnership.
♪
Our success is tied to him winning, for sure.
If he wins, he naturally increases our exposure.
♪
(indistinct crowd chatter)
♪
New York's all about hustle, man, and I love that.
Yeah, I love that.
Everyone seems to be working towards something,
trying to better themselves.
The ruthlessness of it, I love, you know.
I think I thrive in that environment.
America is just a, it's a bigger market, you know,
there's so much more chance and opportunity
to scale there.
I'd love to move to America.
I think about taking that final flight, all the time.
I plan to relocate the whole business there.
In five years' time, BOXRAW will be
competing with Nike and Adidas.
That's the goal.
♪
I've envisioned all this, you know.
It's not completely new to me,
where I'm like, "Wow, I wasn't expecting this."
If I wasn't expecting it,
it wouldn't have happened, you know.
This is what I've been working towards.
(sirens & car horns)
♪
Announcer: It's show time!
(cheering)
♪
That's the creator and the founder of BOXRAW.
Yo, ciao, guys.
Yeah, some of the best boxing clothes in the world.
- Not some, the best. - The best, oh yeah.
♪
People would think I'm crazy if they knew
all the sort of ideas, and dreams,
and goals that I've got, but I didn't do this,
to be the small boutique boxing clothing brand.
I did this to compete with the big boys.
(cheering)
Crowd: (chants) Loma! Loma!
Announcer: (indistinct speaking) Crowd: (cheers & applause)
Announcer: Place is buzzing and we are underway.
Lomachenko got through there with a straight left hand.
There's a straight left hand...
It's all or nothing...
A big upper cut by Lomachenko.
Pedraza hanging on for dear life...
(cheering)
Lightweight champion of the world...!
Vasiliy Lomachenko!
(cheering & applause)
I owe the sport a lot.
But I think that's the reason why I work so hard at
this business and trying to pioneer this boxing lifestyle.
I'm aware of what it's done for me and
I'm fully aware of what it can do for other people.
Loma winning is...
Part of that journey, it's just the start.
♪