ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – After more than a year out of the ring, John Leonardo was just relieved to be back in action.
Fourteen months had passed between his fourth-round stoppage of Jose Saant and Saturday night’s unanimous decision over Edgar Joe Cortes at Tropicana Casino, and a lot had changed in his life. “My life outside of boxing, I had to catch up on,” said Leonardo, a 25-year-old from Manalapan Township in Central New Jersey who has a new job working for the sewage department of Edison Township.
It’s a city job, the kind that promises greater stability, but it takes some getting used to if you’re also trying to balance a boxing career. For Leonardo, it was a fight just to get back inside the ropes.
“I had a lot of stuff keeping me out of the ring,” said Leonardo, now 13-1-1 (6 KOs) after grinding out the victory.
“I seen [Cortes] breaking down. He held in there. I think a couple more rounds, maybe if it was a 10-round fight, I could have got him out of there. I give him credit where credit's due. We fought an eight round fight, and he lasted all eight rounds.”
Leonardo lived up to his nickname “Body Shot,” ripping with both hands to the midsection while drowning Cortes – a sturdy but overmatched southpaw from Vineland, N.J. – with activity. After a competitive first few rounds, Leonardo switched gears and began sitting down with harder power shots that had Cortes holding on in the final round.
“He ate them. You gotta prepare for the body shot, so how else are you gonna fight me?” said Leonardo, a 2016 New Jersey Golden Gloves champion who also won the New York Metros three times as an amateur.
Although Leonardo has had a tough time staying as busy as he would like – even having to promote his own card when he outpointed Dominique Griffin in his lone fight of 2023 – he has some experience in the corner with him to keep him grounded. His father, Donnie Leonardo – himself a 1987 New York Golden Gloves champion – has helped him keep perspective during the kind of career he had hoped for himself when he was accruing a pro record of 6-3-1 (3 KOs) between 1989 and 1991.
“Before this fight, I actually saw my father's last pro fight, where his head wasn't right, and that changed my whole perspective – especially coming to this fight,” Leonardo said. “I told my dad, everything you didn't achieve, I'll make sure I achieve. I seen that shit, and it flipped my whole mindset around and [showed me] why my dad has been so hard on me. I do this for me, but I also do this for him.”
Donnie Leonardo, after cutting the hand wraps off his son, opined that he would like to see his son fight in three or four more record-building fights before taking on the best at 122lbs.
“We're gonna step up the competition a little bit each time. Hopefully after that, he'll be ready for something real,” said Donnie Leonardo, before adding: “I’m a little disappointed that he went into murder mode. I would have rather seen some quality boxing moves that he does possess. Once he got into grind mode, he couldn't get out.”
Boxing Insider Promotions, which promoted Saturday’s card, indicated it will be bringing Leonardo back to the ring for its June card at the same venue.
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.
