Becoming the Champion

Thom Loverro, The Washington Times' lead sports columnist and a member of the DC Boxing Hall of Fame, sits down with William Joppy, the 3-time WBA Middleweight Champion of the World, for a discussion of life in the ring. Prior to the opening night of The Royale get an inside look at the politics of positioning for title bouts as well as the personal sacrifices that go into making a champion.

Thom Loverro has been a professional journalist since 1977, working for a number of newspapers, including eight years as a news editor and reporter for The Baltimore Sun, where he covered government, politics, and crime. He moved into sports writing when he joined The Washington Times in 1992. He moved to The Washington Examiner as a sports columnist in 2009 and returned to The Washington Times in 2013, where he is currently the lead sports columnist. A regular on sports talk radio, he is currently co-host of the Kevin Sheehan Show.

William Joppy was born in Silver Spring, MD and overcame a rough adolescence which included stints in prison before turning to boxing in 1990. After success on the amateur circuit, he turned professional in 1993 and won 19 fights in-a-row before signing with promoter Don King. In 1996 he fought for and won the WBA Middleweight Championship against Shinji Takahara in Japan. Joppy would reclaim the title two more times before retiring in 2011.