Ezekiel Suarez was just a year and a half old when his grandfather, longtime boxing trainer Oscar Suarez, died in 2008.
Ezekiel never saw Oscar in the corner for world champions like “Prince” Naseem Hamed, Acelino Freitas and Frankie Toledo. It was still a legacy he wanted to carry into a new generation.
“The reason why I wanted to box is to continue my grandfather's legacy. I’ve loved the sport of boxing since I was 3; I was holding up the gloves training with my dad in the living room,” said the 20-year-old Ezekiel Suarez of Paterson, New Jersey. “My grandfather, since I knew his history and what he did in the past, I just wanted to continue his legacy as a fighter, instead of as a coach, with my dad alongside with me as the coach, continuing his name.”
Suarez has been boxing since elementary school, but now he will get to make a statement on the highest level from May 11-16 when he competes in the National Golden Gloves in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Suarez, who fought in just about every national tournament as a child, cruised to victory in March in his first open class amateur tournament as an adult, scoring two unanimous decisions en route to the title. It was as much a mental challenge as it was a physical one, as Suarez had been out of the ring for a year and a half, focusing on religious matters while growing from a 118lbs boxer into someone who competes in the 132lbs division.
Now, he will look to show he can compete with grown men at the national level, boxing in a tournament that has long rewarded clean, effective punching – much like the pros.
“I definitely know there were a lot of odds against me, not knowing if I'll perform the same way. I had come back to the gym just six months ago, but I definitely wanted to fight in the Golden Gloves,” said Suarez. “It brought back a lot of memories of me and my pops talking about it, and just hearing a lot of the old-school fighters that were around speak about the Golden Gloves. It put another fire in my back to continue on to the Golden Glove nationals and hopefully taking that one as well.”
Oscar Suarez Jnr, who trains his son, admits that he never wanted his son to box. From a young age, Oscar Jnr enrolled his son into baseball, and he eventually made the local all-star team in Paterson. While things were going great on the diamond, his son had other plans. Suarez Jnr knew what the realities of boxing were, having grown up training in the dingy gyms over blood-stained canvases himself.
It wasn’t the life he wanted for his son.
“He’s like, ‘Dad, I don't want to play baseball anymore, I want to fight.’ And I was like, ‘Nope, you’re gonna continue playing baseball,’” remembers Oscar Jnr.
Still, Ezekiel insisted on changing paths, and when his old training partner Jose Concepcion took over an old warehouse gym and renamed it True Warriors Boxing, Concepcion asked Oscar Jnr to become one of the trainers. Oscar Jnr accepted the offer and began training his son, and he quickly showed an acumen for the sport.
Within a year of competing, Ezekiel was already in a national championship final, losing a competitive decision to amateur star Emmanuel Chance in the 65lbs intermediate title fight in 2018.
The following year he won his first national title, the 2019 National Junior Olympics in Wisconsin, in that same division. The highlight of his Junior Olympic career came in 2023, when he won the 2023 National Qualifier title in the 106lbs youth male division.
Even when Ezekiel was a child, Oscar Jnr says he trained his son to be tough. Oscar Jnr had 15-year-old Ezekiel spar with pros like future IBF junior welterweight titleholder Richardson Hitchins and junior lightweight contender Chris Colbert. They would also drive down to Cherry Hill, New Jersey, just outside of Philadelphia, where his cousin, Raul “Chino” Rivas, is a top coach as well, and have Ezekiel spar with current USA Boxing national team member Salim Ellis-Bey, among others.
If Ezekiel seems like he’s working hard to make a statement, it’s because he understands what his grandfather meant to boxing in his city.
Born in Corozal, Puerto Rico, Oscar Suarez Snr had a short amateur career, competing in the 1981 New Jersey Golden Gloves. By the following year, he was one of the gym’s trainers, helping to establish the Lou Costello Boxing Club on the national stage. After nearly two decades of turning amateurs into established professionals, he got his big break when Hamed’s adviser Charles Muniz suggested Suarez as a trainer for the featherweight champion.
He worked with Hamed for the remainder of his career, and then began training Freitas in 2001, guiding him to junior lightweight and lightweight world titles. Among the other pros that he trained were local fighters that he developed as amateurs, including Omar Sheika, David Toledo and Freddie Cadena. He was just 47 years old when he died of pancreatic cancer.
Oscar Jnr has taken an extra step towards preserving the family legacy: reopening the Lou Costello Boxing Club this past December, 15 years after the club named for the city’s favorite comedian closed its doors. The gym, which had opened in 1971, once occupied a former firehouse at the intersection of Gould Avenue and Pacific Street in Paterson before moving to an industrial building on 20th Avenue; now it has moved three miles away to Passaic, above an auto repair garage on Lexington Avenue.
Ezekiel says he has gotten to know his grandfather more by watching old documentaries and fight films that showed Oscar Snr traveling the world to prepare his boxers for major fights. One thing he says that stands out about his grandfather’s approach to the sport is his poise.
“That’s what brings out the best in fighters, how he didn’t babysit, but he made sure that his fighters were doing what they had to do,” Ezekiel said. “And he prepared his fighters really well, not just in the coaching realm, but also as a mentor outside. I saw him sit down with his fighters and have conversations. That really stood out to me and shows where I would like to be,”
While Ezekiel appreciates Hamed’s charisma, and how he was able to switch gears from showman to serious worker in the gym, he lists his favorite boxers as Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns, adding that he also studied fighters such as Diego Corrales, Vasiliy Lomachenko and Erik Morales for inspiration.
Ezekiel says he doesn’t plan on remaining an amateur for long, and plans on turning professional before the end of the year. While the pro ranks bring greater attention and new distractions, Ezekiel plans on remaining focused on the reasons why he first got into the sport of boxing.
“One thing before my grandfather left, he knew I was going to be a fighter, and I’m here 18 years later after he passed away,” Ezekiel said. “It just means a lot to me to know that when people see me, they also see my grandfather still living.”
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Ezekiel Suarez will be part of a New Jersey squad at the 2026 National Golden Gloves that includes Quazir McLeod (121lbs), Xavier Correa (143lbs), Eric Orr (154lbs), Jordan Simpson (165lbs), Erdis Lala (176lbs) Dominic Lombardi (198lbs) and Daniel Mansfield (198+lbs). The tournament will take place at the Arvest Convention Center in Tulsa for the second straight year.
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
