Tobias Green knows the score. He’s been down this road before.
He’s been there before; brought into his opponent’s hometown, with no one other than his cornermen wishing him success. The 29-year-old, a native of Riviera Beach, Florida who now makes his home in Newburgh, New York knows that he will have the odds to overcome this Saturday, when he faces popular local prospect Bryce Mills in a 10-round junior welterweight fight at Turning Stone Casino in Verona, New York.
Mills, 20-1 (7 KOs), is by far the biggest local draw in the Syracuse area these days, a valuable commodity considering the city’s proximity to the boxing-friendly casino, and it’d be a big boost to his career and drawing power to pick up the minor WBC belt that is at stake in the fight. Green also knows what it would mean to bring that belt home on the three-hour drive south.
“I just think that it'll put me in a position where I'll be more recognized and hopefully get into some hands, whereas I could get a better deal management wise, or put me in a different position to get different type of sponsors. It'll be a big win. My first title fight, his first title fight. So as much as it's important to me, it's important to him as well,” said Green, 12-3-1 (4 KOs).
“How they looking at me, that don't win fights, that’s just a title.”
Head trainer Mike Stellate, who has worked with Mills out of the Main Street Boxing in Pelham Manor, N.Y. for the past year, likes the matchup, saying "Tobias' best versus Bryce's best, we win."
Green, 29, has been out of the ring since July of 2024, dealing with managerial issues while bouncing back from a draw in a fight with Andrew Rodgers, a boxer with a record of 8-12 whom he fought down in Tennessee. Green says he believes he won the fight, but acknowledged he wasn’t at his best, having not trained fully for the opponent after fighting just the previous month. It was a fight he says he only took so his gym mate, Elijah Williams, wouldn’t have to go down there by himself to fight. The fight may have turned out to be a blessing, as it likely made him a more attractive opponent for Mills.
“I felt like I beat him, but I didn't beat him how I guess they probably wanted me to, because I was standing there, I was in the pocket. I was exchanging more with him,” said Green. “It be those guys that you don't hear about, them truck drivers, that you just be like, ‘Wow, they so tough, tougher than you think.’ I fought with my emotions more so than my mind.”
Boxing is a dangerous sport, but Green admits he has found much of what he was missing from life in the gym.
The Florida native first picked up the sport at age 10, joining a local PAL boxing program as an outlet for his misguided ways. “I was just a bad kid, just growing up fighting all the time, not in school, but just in general,” Green remembers. “I just wanted to find an activity that was showing me some type of love I wasn't getting at the house.”
Through boxing, Green was able to see the country, traveling to boxing tournaments and fighting the champions of tomorrow along the way. Among those was Teofimo Lopez, the future lightweight and junior welterweight champion whom he lost a decision to in the Florida Golden Gloves.
“I didn't think that Teo would become who he is to this day. It's just amazing to see that,” Green responded, when asked if he could tell Lopez would become a future pro champion. “I always just was one of them guys that just was testing my abilities. If he's good, he'll stop me then and just tell me why I need to work on him. But he didn't. We went all three rounds. It was a tough fight for him and for me. The first two rounds were very edgy but Teo always finds a way. I was still finding my style, in a sense, but it was a dog fight, it was a learning experience.”
Another future champion whom Green shared the ring with was Richardson Hitchins, the current IBF junior welterweight champion who defeated Green on points in the semifinals of the 2013 PAL National Championships. They still keep in touch, with their mutual friend Peter Dobson acting as an intermediary for their catch-up phone calls.
“I didn’t even know who he was. They were just like they called him Africa or something like that. When I fought him, he was from New York. I didn’t know nobody from New York because I'm from down south,” said Green “It was a good, tough fight.”
Other top pros he has shared the ring with include Adrien Broner, Luke Campbell and Amir Imam, each of whom he has sparred.
Despite Mills’ impressive record, Green says he doesn’t see anything in him that he hasn’t seen before in his pro career or 80-plus amateur fight career.
“Bryce, he got a good style. He’s agile, He moves around, he comes forward. But has he produced anything I haven't seen before? No, not really,” said Green. “I’m not saying, like it's nothing, but he hasn't produced anything I haven't seen before.”
A better question may be: Does Green have something that Mills is yet to see?
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.
