Charles Conwell Jnr left home at 13 to establish a boxing career. Today, barely that many more years later, he is opening his own gym in Cleveland. His goal: to pass on all that he has learned along the way to young fighters who are now in his old boots.
Conwell is coming off a seventh-round knockout of Gerardo Luis Vergara at Toyota Arena in Ontario, California, on December 14. That bout marked his third fight with Golden Boy Promotions since signing a deal with the promoter in February.
But getting there has been a difficult road. Partially in recognition of those struggles, Conwell opened Team T.U.F.F. Combat and Fitness in September.
His pursuit of a world title appears tantalizingly close for 2025, but Conwell remembers well what it was like to be a young teenager uprooted from his home and family in Cleveland to start a life on his own (or that initially felt like it) in Toledo, Ohio. That was 14 years ago.
“To be honest, it was something I really didn’t even want to do,” Conwell said about the move. “I didn’t want to go to school in Toledo and start training down there. It was the worry of the unknown.”
You have to meet Charles Conwell Snr to fully understand it. Charles Snr’s favorite sport was boxing, and he trained like a boxer to stay in shape. A brick mason, Charles Snr introduced his kids to boxing – including two daughters who box.
The story begins with Charles Jnr’s older half-brother, Isiah Steen, better known as “Z-Wop.” Charles Snr began training him in St. Louis. Charles Jnr started a few years later, and they began going to the gym when he moved to Cleveland. Charles Snr recalled a Christmas when Charles Jnr got a set of gloves. He loved the gift, and tables around the house were quickly moved in order for him to train. That is now a fond family memory.
Charles Snr became friendly with a coach from Toledo, Otha Jones II – father of current lightweight pro Otha Jones III – who began bringing his son and other fighters to Cleveland to spar two of the top amateurs at the time, Charles Jnr and Delante “Tiger” Johnson. (Both would go on to become U.S. Olympians – Conwell in 2016 and Johnson in 2020.) Jones II had started a gym back home in Toledo called Soul City Boxing Gym.
On one of his trips to Cleveland for sparring, Jones II saw something.
“He wasn’t doing anything,” Jones II said. “The coaches weren’t training him. He was just standing around. So I asked his dad, ‘Let me train your son.’”
The elder Conwell knew that his son needed more attention when it came to honing his craft. Charles Snr was working long hours and couldn’t commit the time needed to train his son.
“‘Chuck, let me help you get your son ready for Nationals,’” Charles Snr recalls Jones II telling him. He explained that he didn’t have time to get to the gym and he was dependent on other people to help get Jnr ready. Charles Snr heard the chatter that his son was pretty good, and with the blessing of his mother, they agreed to send Charles Jnr to Toledo.
“He was that kind of fighter who needed constant boxing attention and training. He wasn’t getting that at home,” Charles Snr said. “That decision was hard for me to make because it is like giving my baby up.
“The decision was bigger than me. So that decision was based on what was best for him – and by doing it, I lost a lot of friends in the city.”
His father mentioned that even Charles Jnr himself dissented at first.
“Charles never complained to me, but he complained the whole time to his mom,” Charles Snr said. “He would say, ‘I don’t know them. Y’all are making me go down there and train with them.’”
The parents explained that they were doing what they saw was in their son’s best interests. Charles Jnr had shown exceptional talent, and they wanted him to get the most out of it.
“He ended up going to school down there with his brother,” Charles Snr said. “I gave Otha legal custody. Even though Toledo is only an hour and a half away from Cleveland, we let him go to school in Toledo and come home on the weekends.”
Looking back, Charles Jnr believes the decision helped build mental toughness in a young man.
“I was out there on my own, with no mother, no father to lean on,” Charles Jnr said. “The only people I could lean on were the coaches, who, eventually, ended up becoming my family.”
Then the gamble paid off. The turning point came at the Junior Olympics.
“I won the Junior Olympics,” Charles Jnr said. “Back then, it was like a real big deal for me. I think it was the National Junior Olympics, and you had to go through a state qualifier and a regional qualifier to win that. I feel like that was a turning point of my amateur career.”
At this point, another key figure entered the life of Charles Jnr: Roshawn Jones, another son to Otha Jones II. A boxer and wrestler, Roshawn would also serve as a coach for Charles Jnr. He took on yet another important role. Although Charles Jnr has two half-brothers in “Z-Wop” and Marlon Steen (who passed away this past July), Roshawn gradually became an influential sibling-like figure to him.
And it wasn’t long after, says Roshawn, that the turning point came for Charles Jnr.
“With Charles winning the 2014 and 2015 Junior National Golden Gloves Championships and multiple Ringside World Championships,” Roshawn said, “his streak of victories showcased his natural talent.”
Yet Charles Jnr’s path to the Olympics was a rocky one, with no Hollywood ending. He won the Olympic trials, but that meant Charles Jnr had to qualify for the Olympics through international performances. Traveling around the world to box is when the bond between Charles Jnr and Roshawn grew.
“Charles had to compete in three professional WSB [World Series of Boxing] bouts,” Roshawn said. “This took us to Morocco, Miami [where Charles Jnr faced Team Great Britain] and Argentina, where he fought against some of the best in the world.”
The steadying voice throughout was Roshawn, who was at Charles Jnr’s side for the wins and the low moments, such as when Conwell lost in the opening round of the Olympics in Rio to Krishan Vikas.
“He traveled the world with Roshawn,” Charles Snr said. “He is like his big brother.”
“Being a big-brother figure to Charles meant leading by example,” Roshawn said. “Now we’re focused on helping Charles to reach new heights in his career.”
Charles Jnr calls Roshawn and the Joneses “good people” and realizes that the whole arrangement could have worked out much differently.
“We went off faith and vibes, and everything just went right,” he said.
Now, more than a decade after his first trip away from home, Charles Jnr returns to Cleveland and a new gym, a facility named after a non-profit organization his parents created.
“It stands for Tightly United Family Fighters,” he said. “I am continuing what they had going and I want to keep the name alive.”
“Z-Wop” works at the gym, as does former professional boxer Willie Nelson.
Charles Jnr, now 21-0 (16 KOs) as a professional, is no longer looking at Olympic gold but rather a world title belt. He wants to bring it back to his gym – and give it some time in Toledo.
It would make for a nice addition, but Jones II already sees something special – something different – in Charles Jnr’s gym. In 2019, Charles Jnr knocked out Patrick Day in a fight in Chicago, where, after the bout, Day never regained consciousness. He passed away days later.
“We’ve been incorporating boxing and mental health for 12 years,” Jones II said. “Mostly around transitional things, like Charles going back and forth from Toledo to Cleveland. Transitional things are traumatic for a child.
“So when he experienced the Patrick Day incident, it brought him back to some of the mental health exercises that we went through to cope with different parts of life. He wanted to be able to put that structure in so he could help these kids in the community. He’s going to do that through stuff like seeing their parents have fights and seeing their parents get into it, going to court, and the kids are separated.”
The way Charles Jnr sees it, he isn’t just running a gym. He wants to share with young fighters some of the life lessons that have helped him build his own healthy, well-adjusted life. At the same time, he recognizes that his own mental health and fight preparation benefit from his time in Toledo.
“When it’s time for me to go to training camp, I will train at Soul City,” Charles Jnr said. “It just gives me peace of mind. All the worries about being at home and all the distractions of being home fade. I feel like being two hours away does help me a lot.”
When he is not in camp, Charles Jnr will be back at Team T.U.F.F. Combat and Fitness and near his two children, Cameron (4) and Caitlin (1).
“When you are building a champion or any type of athlete, everything has to go right,” Charles Snr said. “Not one thing, everything, has to line up. A lot of good athletes didn’t make it because of the circumstances of the situation. They may have had the right people in their corner, but things didn’t work out.”
The gamble that the Conwell family took hasn’t yet fully paid off in creating a world champion, but it was a bold move that helped elevate Charles Jnr to impressive heights – perhaps just a step away from that ultimate goal.
“Charles has always been like a nephew to me,” Jones II said. “His dad is really cool. It’s just like seeing one of my kids or my nephew grow up and become a man, and that he is. He’s definitely a man.”
Charles Jnr can now look back at that hesitant 13-year-old kid transplanted to new and unfamiliar – but ultimately warm and nurturing – surroundings, and see clearly how he arrived at this moment.
“Once I got there,” he said, “it was a match made in heaven.”
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