A Vero Beach Knockout

“I’ve got to warn you, boxing gyms have no AC.” Those were some of the first words out of Gus Curren’s mouth when he welcomed me to House of Champions. No problem. Hey, I’ve seen “Raging Bull,” “Rocky,” “Million Dollar Baby,” “The Fighter” and “Creed.” I expected a boxing gym to be short on ambiance. What I didn’t expect, however, was to meet a guy with such magic for motivating nearly everyone who walks through his gym doors to keep on coming back for more.

Gus knows firsthand how addictive training and boxing can be. At age 18, he had no real boxing experience other than a little kickboxing that his uncle had introduced him to when he was just nine or ten. But Gus wanted to get in shape, so he joined Claymore Boxing, a Vero Beach gym owned by Frank Lassaso. 

Although the small gym only had about five or six guys training there at the time, there was nothing “small-time” about the quality of that training. In fact, Gus found himself jumping, running, punching and sweating every day alongside none other than then 16-year-old Floyd Mayweather Jr., who was preparing for the 1996 Olympics. At the time a relative unknown outside the world of amateur boxing, Mayweather went on to become one of the highest paid athlete in all of sports, earning $700 million thus far in his career.