Better late than never: Hosaflook, at 45, is thriving in the boxing ring

View larger image Scotty Hosaflook takes a breather during training at a boxing gym in Fort Valley on Tuesday. Hosaflook, of Edinburg, is a 45-year-old boxer who will fight at the Winchester Sportsplex tonight. Rich Cooley/Daily Audio slideshow: Better late than never ...

By Chuck McGill -- cmcgill@nvdaily.com

FORT VALLEY -- His body doesn't forgive him like it used to.

After a sparring session on Tuesday, Scotty Hosaflook parked his 45-year-old body on a wooden bench, rested his elbows on his knees and looked up at his trainer, Scott Farmer.

"Scott, I'm tired man," he said as beads of sweat rolled over the wrinkles on his forehead. "We gonna rest tomorrow?"

It's less than a week before the fight, and after months of training, Hosaflook wants to shuck the protective head gear and climb through the ropes. After all, he doesn't have a lot of time to carve his niche in boxing.

"People ask me 'Scotty, you are 45, why do you still do it?'" Hosaflook said. "Well, I love it ... and because I can. And I can still do it well. That's why I do it."

Tonight at the Winchester Sportsplex, as part of Tomorrow's Champions XII, a production of Farmer's Left Hook LLC, Hosaflook will fight Derek Amos in a four-round bout. It's Hosaflook's sixth professional fight.

He admits that, at 45, his time in the ring is dwindling. But other than wearing the experience of life on his face and the absence of a few hairs on the top of his head, there's little evidence he's going to slow down soon.

The southpaw has devastating strength. His biceps would be the envy of any weightlifting junkie. He's shed approximately 40 pounds under Farmer's watch, shifting from a steady diet of Big Macs to chicken, fish, fruit, vegetables and water.

"All these gears in here gotta work right," Hosaflook said as he rubbed his stomach. "If a guy hits you with a body shot and you got milk and cheese floating around in there, it's not going to feel too good."

He gets his "road work" in, running two miles per day. He's quick and aggressive. And after taking a breather and asking his trainer if a day of rest is coming, Hosaflook catches his second wind. As if he's a 20-year-old kid trapped in an old man's body -- "I'm full of energy," he says -- Hosaflook bounces off the bench and starts delivering punishing blows to a punching bag hanging from the wall.

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but we're trying," Farmer said. "He's progressing all the time. I'm not going to sit here and say he's going to win a world title, but he's going to surprise some people."

* * *

Some people already know.

Hosaflook's quickly become a crowd favorite in the valley, in part because of his aggressive style -- a byproduct of his roots in Toughman competitions. He won two Toughman competitions in the late '90s -- one in Martinsburg, W.Va., the other in Beckley, W.Va. -- before finishing as a semifinalist in the World Toughman competition in Biloxi, Miss., in 2000. But since a person can only win two Toughman competitions before he's ineligible to compete, Hosaflook needed another outlet to fight.

That's when he was led to Farmer. The transition from a no-holds-barred brawler to disciplined boxer has been difficult at times.

"It's a whole different story," Hosaflook said. "Toughman is only three one-minute rounds. This, you gotta take your time. It still takes me a while. You gotta pick your spots, you can't go sluggin'. Every day I learn in here. Every day."

Still, Hosaflook's strength as an amateur boxer and Toughman competitor translate well to boxing. It's even in his nickname: "The Body Snatcher."

"I stopped a lot of guys with body shots," said Hosaflook, explaining the origin of the nickname. "They didn't do their abdominal work. They'd come in there, they were just beer drinkers and I'd slam them to the body and that'd stop them -- take their breath out of them."

When in the ring, Hosaflook feeds off the energy of the crowd. He believes they rally around him because of his age and the fact that he's "just your average guy."

"There's nothing special about me," he said. "I think my age has a lot to do with it. I think they just relate to me."

Part of that could be that he's a local boy. Hosaflook graduated from Central High School in 1982 and played running back and linebacker for the football team. He expects a large contingent of his supporters to be in the crowd tonight.

"I don't sleep for like two days before the fight," he said. "This is the hard part -- the training. The fun part is when you get all your family and friends up in there. You step out there and step in that ring in front of 400 or 500 people. There's something about it."

* * *

Spend a couple of minutes around Hosaflook and his faith will inevitably surface. Sometimes, he says, he tries to subdue what he calls "God stuff," but he's been saved -- and he wants everyone to know it.

"God's been good to me," he said. "A lot better to me than I've been to myself."

He pauses for a long time after that statement, as if his mind is patrolling his past transgressions.

Hosaflook admits he didn't have the grades or test scores to play college football. He had an amateur boxing career in Washington after high school, but what he would only identify as "trouble" forced him to come home. He then landed in a federal prison in Gilmer County, W.Va., in 2005 on drug-related charges.

He was released five months ago a changed man.

"I was incarcerated and I was like 'I don't need this,'" he said. "I know my heart's better than this -- what this cocaine led me to do. I did my time and here I am. My heart's been changed. I know it has.

"I'm a born-again Christian. Without [Jesus], I wouldn't be here."

Hosaflook almost cringes that drugs are a part of his past. His eyes sadden at the thought of all the years he's wasted -- years he could've had in the ring, years he could've had with God.

"I've made my mistakes in life, God knows that," he said. "I didn't look at the fact at how he blessed me with such a wonderful, healthy body. I did a lot of drugs, a lot of cocaine. No more now.

"I came out and Scott Farmer said 'Get your butt back over in this gym.'"

* * *

Hosaflook takes a moment to explain how his right-handed jab sets up his dangerous left.

"Straight left, straight down the pipe -- boom," he said, hopeful he can execute his plan tonight against Amos.

Farmer preaches patience to Hosaflook, but once Hosaflook takes a punch, all bets are off.

"Scott wants me to be on my toes boxing, but once I get hit that goes out the window," Hosaflook said. "I let him have it. Just a good punch gets you going."

Farmer understands this.

"He's not going to stand there and flick his glove out," Farmer said. "That's not his style. Some people have a personality. His personality is such that he's going to take 10 steps forward for every one he takes back. Very seldom is he going to take a backwards step in the boxing ring."

After all, he's taken plenty of steps backward outside of the ropes. Now, however, he uses his past to help protect other people's futures, specifically kids. One of Farmer's objectives is to raise the profile of boxing in the area. That starts with young people.

The young fighters that walk into Farmer's gym often get a mouthful from Hosaflook.

"He'll tell the kids that come in here, 'I've done this, I've done that. You can't do this to yourself,'" said Donnie Poe, who helps Farmer train boxers. "He's a good guy to have around."

Hosaflook's oldest friends have maintained there's a good guy behind the muscles.

"He's always been a genuine guy, he just made some bad choices along the way," said Mike Yew, Central's football coach and longtime friend of Hosaflook. "He's never been but a good person to me and my family. Always respectful and courteous. Sometimes when you hear things about people, it's hard to imagine them doing it.

"Now it seems like his heart is in the right place."

Even so, Hosaflook fights all day, every day.

He's embraced God, but still battles his demons. He's learned to love himself, but still wrestles with his past. His body is older, but his heart and spirit are more equipped to take the punches from life.

"I'm just trying to right myself," he said. "At 45, God's been good to me. To be this old and to still be doing well. I'm just blessed."