WAR DeLuca: “The Bazooka” Deploys to the UK for Matchroom Battle vs Kell Brook

It is Friday afternoon, August 24, 2018, summertime in Quincy Market. I am standing at attention with Mark DeLuca outside of Boston’s historic public meeting house, Faneuil Hall.

It’s a zoo.

The buzz of Eddie Hearn’s boxing promotion rages all around us. DeLuca’s heavily muscled arms explode from a simple black-V-neck t-shirt. He wears a loaded look of pure determination.

DeLuca is humble cannon.

“Boston is hot right now and the fighters in Boston are making big splashes,” he says. “You’ve got Toka Kahn, Boo-Boo, Danny, Greg Vendetti just had a good win, Rashidi Ellis. We’re making a big comeback here. I’m happy where I am now but I’ll go wherever the opportunity presents.”

“So yeah, I’d love to fight in the U.K.”

On February 8, 2020, the Quincy, Massachusetts born super-welterweight has the biggest fight of his life coming up in Sheffield against former welterweight champion of the world Kell Brook.

Their main event, scheduled for 12 rounds, airs on DAZN and on Sky Sports.

Four days later, after the fog of war subsides, DeLuca will reach his 32nd birthday, a personal milestone for a United States Marine Infantryman who’s gone to war with America’s enemies on the battlefield of bombs and lived to see another day—haunted by the knowledge of men and women on his side who did not. Just the other day—another flag draped coffin came home.

DeLuca knows he’s not being sent over there by Eddie Hearn to win and that’s OK. This is what Corporal DeLuca has been waiting for since going pro as a boxer (and as a U.S. Marine) in 2007—to be engaged in a winnable war overseas, to be face-to-face with an elite adversary.

In 2011, he did a dangerous tour of duty in Afghanistan.

We rightly thank heroes like Mark.

And not just for his service to America, but also for his service to the unsung warriors of boxing, men like local light-heavyweight Brandon Montella (pictured on the left), a now happily married fitness trainer who went 9-0 (8) as a pro after willing himself to the New England Golden Gloves Championships in 2012.

Their respectful relationship born of “instant, willing obedience” was depicted in the single-season reality show The Fighters filmed in 2014 at Peter Welch’s South Boston gym.

The premise of the program was simple: “Each week, trainers from rival boxing gyms across Boston will choose their top amateur fighters to represent their gyms in a bout. After seven days of intense training, the fighters will face off in the ring with their professional futures at stake.”

DeLuca trained and tutored Montella (also a Marine) when the aimless new pro was gymless and coachless in 2015. The fighters share a similar moral code of calm patience and selfless service. “Mark would show up, wrap my hands and corner me,” Montella recalls with pride. It’s interesting to note that Montella is eight years older and outranks his younger fighting mentor.

“When Mark was in my corner it was like being in the Marines again with a leader you know has been there before and will go there with you. He was the leader I never got to follow into a battle.”

CRUCIBLE OF BOXING

At the Boston Garden in 2018, DeLuca avenged his only professional loss (a razor thin split decision defeat in the “Live Free or Die” New England State of New Hampshire) by outshooting Walter “Two Guns” Wright on a Matchroom USA sanctioned undercard. Promoted by Ken Casey’s Murphys Boxing based outta Boston, DeLuca’s fists are his weapons of war now.

They will do his talking.

So, I’ll say a few things about him.

DeLuca is a hope to many in a depleted locality.

The townie from Whitman, Mass could go on to become the New England region’s new and next Micky Ward (Pride of Lowell) or he might fade into mediocrity like Framingham’s Danny O’Connor. He’s 24-1 with 13 KOs. More boxer than brawler, DeLuca occasionally fights outside of his personality; a trap any popular boxer can fall into if he lets a noisy crowd dictate to him.

He is as physically fit as you’d expect for a United States Marine—and twice as quick. In 2017, he endured a huge cut over his right eye outgutting Chris Chatman in his “toughest fight to date.”

A southpaw, DeLuca won twice in 2019, first in March at the House of Blues in Boston where he decisioned Jimmy Williams and then in June in Providence, Rhode Island, beating the unbeaten Brandon “L-Jack” Brewer over ten entertaining rounds. He’s healthy and ring ready.

“I feel I have good momentum,” he tells me.

Brook didn’t fight at all in 2019.

DeLuca shrugs that off.

“He’s dangerous and hungry to get back.”

Hitting age 34 next May, Brook is known to bust up and has been beaten down before, first by Errol Spence in 2016 and then in 2017 by middleweight champ Gennady Golovkin. If he’s as shell-shocked as thought by some, DeLuca’s “Bazooka” fire could be too much to handle.

“There have been dark times,” admits Brook. “DeLuca is a strong gutsy fighter who’s always ready for war but I’m planning on making a statement to show I’m still a force at 147 or 154.”

Brook, the former IBF welterweight champion, is now 38-2 with 26 KOs. Matched conservatively in 2018, this will be his third consecutive bout in his hometown of Sheffield.

Known as the “Special One” in the ring, it’s been a few years since Brook has put on an especially special performance there. His 2014 upset of pressure fighter Shawn Porter to claim the IBF 147-pound crown was just such a special night in Carson, California on Showtime.

On that hot summer day in Boston back in 2018, I asked DeLuca about Kid Galahad, the chippy British featherweight who eight weeks later upset Toka Kahn by decision on the October 20 TD Garden show and who will be fighting at home on this February 8 card against Claudio Marrero.

Galahad was making his first media appearance outside the U.K. I was telling DeLuca about the bad blood between Toka and Galahad and confessing that I didn’t really know who Galahad was.

What DeLuca knows is the art of war. “It’s guys like that who come up from the rear and surprise everybody,” he explained. “They’re undercover. They show up and spoil the party.”

Known for his “chocolate brownie” right hand, Kell Brook better be careful in Sheffield or the unknown Mark DeLuca will go home to Whitman to celebrate with a 32 candle salute at his expense.

Boxing Writer Jeffrey Freeman grew up in the City of Champions, Brockton, Massachusetts from 1973 to 1987, during the Marvelous career of Marvin Hagler. JFree then lived in Lowell, Mass during the best years of Irish Micky Ward’s illustrious career. A new member of the Boxing Writers Association of America and a Bernie Award Winner in the Category of Feature Under 1500 Words, Freeman covers boxing for The Sweet Science in New England.

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