By Walter Robert Editor in Chief
When Lamont Roach Jr. walks into a room, it’s not his posture you notice first; it’s his presence. Not just a boxer. Not just a world champion. He carries something older, deeper; something weighty that doesn’t need to be announced. Maybe it’s what happens when you’re molded in the heat of grief, raised on discipline, and born into legacy. Or maybe it’s just who Lamont’s always been, even before he knew it.
The first time he stepped into a gym, it wasn’t about destiny. It was about proximity. “I was nine. My dad took me to the gym for my cousin Jermaine,” Lamont says, with the same calm precision he brings to the ring. “My older cousin Bernard “Boogaloo” Roach was the trainer there. He asked me if I wanted to box. I said, ‘I guess.’ And since then? I’ve never taken a break.”
What started as a shrug became an identity. Better yet a calling. While most kids were toggling between different sports and video games, Lamont was slipping punches and sharpening purpose.“Football was actually my first love,” he laughs. “I really thought I was going to the NFL. But in high school, I’m watching these dudes eat ten times a day, lifting, taking creatine, meanwhile I’m cutting weight. Bro, I was ranked number one in the country in boxing. Why would I go compete with 1,000 kids just to maybe start at wide receiver?”
It wasn’t just a decision, it was clarity. Early!
By 14, Lamont was sparring professionals. By 18, he was being whispered about as an Olympic contender or future pro. His lane was opening, not because someone gave him permission, but because he’d earned it. And Boogaloo saw it coming before the world did.
“He used to tell me, all the time, I’d be one of the greatest to ever lace up gloves. He wasn’t shy about it. He just knew.”
But in 2017, the world cracked. Lamont lost Jermaine, the same cousin he began boxing with to gun violence.
“He was like my big brother,” Lamont says, voice slowing. “I’m the oldest of three siblings, but he was older than me. We boxed together. Slept at each other’s houses. Saw each other almost every day for 13 years.” Five months later, Boogaloo passed away too.
“I’ve only had two moments in my life I’d call truly depressing. That was one of them.”
What do you do when the people who started the journey with you aren’t there to finish it?
You keep going.
You turn grief into gasoline.
“You keep shining,” Lamont says. “He taught me and my dad everything. We carry it. We elevate it. He has a homegrown champion and we’re just getting started.”
But Lamont’s glow doesn’t end under the ring lights. Outside the ropes, there’s another version of him style-forward, culture-aware, deeply present in his community. He moves through fashion with the same intentionality he brings to sport. That’s not an accident.
“I come from a family that puts that shit on,” he grins. “It’s not just on me, it’s in me. My mom? She’s going to pop it. My dad? Fly, but reserved. He’s the structure. My mom’s the flare. I’m both.”
This September, Lamont will walk into New York Fashion Week not as a novelty, but as a natural extension of who he already is.
It’s not just about clothes it’s about expression. About stepping into rooms your neighborhood never imagined you in.
“I love it, man. I actually care about the shows. I’ve always had an eye for brands, cuts, the vibe. To be invited to Fashion Week? That’s big for me. It means people are paying attention.”
People are paying attention. That much is certain. At a Fanatics event in NYC, he stood beside legends like Allen Iverson, the cultural blueprint for the athlete-artist—and the moment stuck.
“AI changed everything. Cornrows. The sleeve. The tats. The swagger. He influenced a whole era, not just in sport, but in how we saw ourselves,” Lamont says. “And when he showed love to me, when he said he knew what I was doing. I’m sitting there like, yo... you don’t even know... you want to be me right now. That meant a lot.”
But Lamont isn’t just influenced. He’s influencing. Especially back home in D.C., where he’s become more than a fighter, he’s become a fixture. From youth boxing clinics to school drives, he’s planting seeds in places that rarely get watered.
“I didn’t have someone like me to look up to. Someone I could see, touch, and talk to. That’s what I needed as a kid. So now I am that. I’m physically present. These kids? They can see me. They can touch me. I want them to know I’m not just here for headlines. I’m here here.”
The game he gives is rooted in discipline. Boxing, to him, is therapy. Strategy. Self-mastery. Especially for young Black men in communities that treat violence like currency.
“You gotta be very disciplined to succeed in boxing,” he explains. “And that discipline? It doesn’t always stop you from making mistakes. But it makes you aware. Aware of how close the wrong path is. Aware of the price. Awareness can save your life before success does. That’s what I try to teach them.”
So when fight night comes, there’s no chaos, only clarity. “Tunnel vision,” he says. “I got one goal: destroy what’s on the other side. And I won’t stop until I do.”
He pauses.
“But falling short? That doesn’t mean losing. Falling short means not doing what I’m supposed to do. Not training how I said I would. Not staying disciplined. That’s failure. A loss in the ring don’t scare me, but that does.”
His voice sharpens when we talk about the recent derailment of his contractually obligated rematch.
It’s the kind of thing most fighters won’t touch publicly but Lamont doesn’t flinch.
“Put yourself in my shoes. We fought a fight. The superstar lost, most of the world agrees. But I got the short end of the stick. We had a rematch clause. That was my only chance to right what was wrong. Now, it’s being ignored. That’s not just bad business. That’s disrespect.”
“I took time away from my son, from my family. I trained. I sacrificed. And now? You think I’m just gonna sit back? That’s crazy. So yeah, something’s in the works.”
Then with a smile
“I.m going to fight again this year. 2025. And then first quarter of 2026?” “We’re bringing a big bang for sure”
The legacy, then, isn’t theoretical. It’s lived. Breathed. Fought for.
“I want to be remembered as a bad motherf—,” he says, laughing. “But also as a good father. A good man. Someone who didn’t just take on challenges, but finished what he started. Someone who gave back. Who stood up. Who did it right.”
There’s a reason this story doesn’t need an ending just yet.
Because Lamont Roach Jr. isn’t done fighting.
He’s still mid-round. Still writing the story. Still walking into rooms with the weight of those who aren’t here, and the hope of those who will be.
They started it.
He’s finishing it.