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Tony Pep keeps boxing alive right here in New
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Wire you walk down 6" Street and turn left on Royal Avenue towards Douglas College,
you’ ll walk past a number of steps that lead into the basement of the Royal Towers Hotel,
directly under The Standard Nightclub.

If you walk down those steps and into the basement, you’ll find that it has been
completely re-fitted to become one of New Westminster’s only pure boxing gyms, Pep
Boxing.

New Westminster’s own Tony Pep, a former International Boxing Organization (IBO)
world featherweight champion, runs Pep Boxing. Tony has operated the gym for a little over
a year and four months.

“T was tired of working for someone else. I thought that I could be more effective doing
this and working for myself,” Pep says.

 

“T played football for a while, but I had to choose between it and boxing. I really liked
the individuality of boxing. In football, other players could let you down,” he adds. “It might
sound selfish, but I liked the victory of boxing; it’s just you and another guy.”

Tony remembers his teenage years as tough, but a ton of fun at times.

“My Mom died when I was real young and I never knew my Dad, so I spent a lot of
time in foster homes,” he says. “The thing was, I would always run away from them, but
I stayed in school. So they’d come looking for me and they’d always find me in school,
because I always stayed in school. So, eventually, this social worker agreed to pay my rent
and food, so I had my own pad at 16. Man, the parties we had...after dinner every night, I’d
have a bunch of guys over. Some of them got pretty wild.”

“I worked at the PNE a lot, because I lived pretty close to there. I spent a ton of time
there. Back then, the arcade used to be open until one in the morning, so we'd get a pop,

“You see a lot of guys come in to box, but not a lot have what it takes. It takes something special. You need to have more than

just talent. You need to have confidence, and you have to have drive.”

Pep, 44, never officially retired from professional boxing. He hasn’t fought since 2003,
but that’s set to change. On November 7" of this year, Tony “Kidfire” Pep is set to fight
again and try and improve on his 42 wins, 23 by knockout, 10 losses and one draw. His
fight will be broadcast on SportsNet, a company that Pep works for on and off every three
months, commentating on their boxing programs. When asked about his nerves heading into
his comeback fight, Pep doesn’t hesitate, and offers some interesting insight into the way
boxers are trained today.

“I’m not really nervous, you know. This is what I was born to do,” Pep says. “I don’t
know anything else, but man, I know boxing. I mean, I know it inside out, back to front,
man. I have more experience than just about anyone fighting. You know, I’ve got the
experience; I’ve fought all over the world. A lot of these older guys who are trainers now,
they never left B.C., so it’s tough for them to adapt.”

Pep certainly does have the experience to compete in any fight he wants. . -

“I started boxing at 11, and by 12 years old, I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of
my life,” Pep says. “Most kids at that age, they’re playing games with a stick and a ball, but
I knew at 12 that I wanted to go pro and own my own gym one day.

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pour half of it out, fill it with booze, then we’d head in,” he recalls. “It was great. I had fun
as a kid man. Even though I didn’t have parents, I had a fun childhood.”

After just 11 amateur fights, Pep turned professional at only 17 years old in 1982.
Since then, he’s fought in countries such as Australia, Denmark, Amsterdam, Korea, Wales
and England. He’s also boxed in U.S. cities like New York City, Atlantic City and Las Vegas.
When Pep won the Commonwealth championship, he traveled to England five times to fight.

“T’ve met a lot of people and seen a lot of places that I never would have been able to
without boxing,” Pep says.

While boxing has taken Pep to a number of high-profile places over the years, it’s
also brought him some high-profile opponents, and none of them stand out more than
Floyd Mayweather Jr., arguably the best pound-for-pound fighter ever. Mayweather, who
just retired from boxing with a perfect record, battled it out with Pep in June of 1998.
Mayweather was 16-0 at the time, and was rising fast. Pep lost a unanimous decision after
ten rounds, but his relationship with Mayweather was just getting started.

“There are some fights that you just feel like you can’t be beaten. That night, I honestly
thought that nobody in the entire world could beat me except for Floyd. You just get into a