Congiu throwing punches in mom’s memory
It will be an emotional night this Friday when Adam (Hitman) Congiu returns to the boxing ring after a 12-year absence.
The 51-year-old St. Catharines resident will be fighting on the St. Catharines Boxing Club’s Pre St. Patrick’s Day Boxing Card at the Optimist Hall at 8 Napier Street in St. Catharines.
“This will be a one-off and I am going to dedicate it to my mother. What got me interested was Joe (Corrigan) saying they had a showing coming up and it was going to be on the weekend of St. Patrick’s Day. My mother being Irish and me being a proud half-Irish I started thinking in my head that I wanted to be in the show. I want to do this for cancer and I want to do this for my mom.”
Congiu lost his mom, Linda Bradley, to cancer last summer.
“Within eight months, I saw her just deteriorate to 90 pounds without being able to get out of bed. It crushed me to see this strong matriarch of the family in that position. It bothered her a lot because she couldn’t do what she wanted to do. She couldn’t be the leader any more. I struggled with that but I was more worried about her than anything else,” he said. “I was there for her, I was there the day she died and after that I thought I have to get back to the gym. This is bringing me down. I don’t want to get into another funk like before and undoing everything I had done with losing weight and start drinking again.”
His mom was a big part of his life.
“She was the essence of the fighting Irish. She inspired me as boxer even though she didn’t like to watch me fight. She was mentally tough and physically tough.”
Her memory will loom large this Friday.
“It’s her not being there and not being able to tell her how I did. I will be thinking about her the whole time, that’s for sure.”
Unfortunately cancer, has been an unwelcome visitor in the past to Congiu’s life.
“The biggest thing I had to overcome in my life was cancer,” he said.
He also lost an uncle to cancer and, it 2006, it was him fighting the dreaded disease.
“I started losing a lot of weight and it was coming off quickly but I had a fight coming up and I was training for it. I keep going down weight classes not just a few pounds. When it came time for the fight, I weighed 114 pounds and I was down from 135.”
He was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery and three cycles of chemotherapy. It took him more than a year to recover.
“With me, I have always been the black sheep of the family and I always think differently It made me think of the people around me, my wife (Denise), my dad, my mom, my friends, everyone at the boxing club and wishing that it didn’t happen to them because I know what it is all about. To see my wife go through me being so sick and watching me throw up water just so I could have something to throw up. It bothered me more to think about what everyone else was seeing and it bothered me even more to think what happens if someone close to me gets it. I didn’t want to see it happen to them.”
It was a true wake-up call.
“I have to spend more time with my friends, I have to spend more time with my family because time is everything when you go through something like that.”
Eventually, he returned to boxing and ended up fighting his last fight in May 2012. He was also coaching at the time but he had to step back because of work commitments with his father (Cosimo).
“The only problem was the beers got too tasty and the eating was good. I gained a lot of weight. I went up to 210 pounds from 145.”
Four years later, he had had enough.
“I cut back on drinking, I started eating a little better and the weight started to come down. Over the last two years, I lost the last 30 pounds I wanted to lose to bring back to 145.”
He did that by running five kilometres daily.
This past December, he returned to training at the St. Catharines Boxing Club.
“It was like being back with family I hadn’t see in awhile. I was welcomed with open arms as always and felt at home. It was a piece of my life that was missing.”
It wasn’t easy to resume training at his previous level.
“It’s crazy. I came into the gym and started hitting the bag and working out and doing drills. I found it was taking a little bit longer to get back in shape and it was quite a while before I started sparring again. When I did start sparring, I found that I did not have the endurance. I used to spar for nine rounds, three minutes a round, and now I am doing four two-minute rounds. There was a big difference and it seemed the more I pushed myself, the harder it was the next day. I just had to be happy where I am and ‘Yes Adam, you are 51 years old.”
Other local boxers fighting on the card include Dylan Maisonneuve, Gavin Freel, Megan Reynolds, Ed Uronick, Pat Ryan, Alex Lindsay, Mark Ryan, Bobby Haynes and Ashir Raja.
Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door. For more information call 905-988-1244 or email
stcatharinesboxingclub@yahoo.ca
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the boxing starts at 7:30 p.m.
