Pro boxing event in Chattanooga tonight features homecoming for two brothers

Roger Hilley awaits his second professional fight tonight at the Chattanooga Convention Center. He won by knockout there in December.
Roger Hilley awaits his second professional fight tonight at the Chattanooga Convention Center. He won by knockout there in December.

Tonight at the Chattanooga Convention Center is a homecoming featuring reunited brothers Joseph Francisco and Roger Hilley.

It's also a celebration for the Joe Smith family, with whom both brothers lived during their adolescence.

The 22-year-old Hilley will be in the main event of a boxing card starting at 7 p.m. He's 1-0 as a pro, having won by knockout at the same venue in December. His 28-year-old half-brother will be in the earlier 140-pound pro fight against Ronnie Watson of Wilson, N.C., Hilley's December opponent.

Asked if had given Francisco any advice with respect to Watson, Hilley smiled and said, "He don't need it."

Hilley's 130-pound foe tonight will be Jerson Ramos of Atlanta.

"I know he's a right-handed boxer and likes to move to his left, looking to land that right hand," said Hilley, a left-hander. "He's 1-1-1, but the footage I saw was old, from like 2012."

Tonight's event also has five amateur bouts, including one female matchup and others with "a couple of elite athletes top-ranked in the USA," according to Andy Smith. Admission is $20 at the gate.

Smith is the regional executive director of the YMCA's YCAP program, following in the footsteps of his father, Joe. Andy was the YCAP boxing coach as Francisco and Hilley made their way through their challenging teenage years, and both feel boxing kept them from even worse decisions than they have made.

Francisco in particular feels blessed to be boxing again. He's 1-2 as a pro, but he hasn't fought since 2009. He recently completed five years in federal prison, the result of getting into selling drugs and guns in Kentucky.

He had been the first shining star of the YCAP boxing program, where he was referred by juvenile court at the age of 11, as a sixth-grader at Orchard Knob Middle School.

"I was failing out of school - all F's," he said, "but I graduated eighth grade and moved in with the Smiths the summer before I went to ninth grade. I went to Lookout Valley and graduated from high school, and I had everything going for me, but I took some wrong turns."

He said he got "burned out" through his years of amateur boxing success, capped by cutting weight from 140 pounds to 112 on his 5-foot-5 frame for Golden Gloves, but his last six months of incarceration he became determined to get back into serious boxing - making a career of it, he hopes.

"My first stop when I got back to Chattanooga was the gym. I had got up to 170 pounds, and it was muscle, but I've dropped 30 pounds since I got out. I'm eventually going to get down to 135, but I told Andy, 'I don't want to put too much on myself. I'll wait on that other five.'"

He said Tuesday that he expects nerves to hit, as they always have before, "when I get to the foot of the steps to go into the ring, but the excitement is very big. To be boxing again and to be on the same card as my little brother - he's been holding it down since I've been gone - and to know you can get in trouble but you've still got people back home who love you, it's just a great feeling."

Hilley was with Paula Smith, Joe's wife, and their daughter Abbey, when they picked up Francisco on Oct. 18 from the prison in McDowell, W.Va. Joe and Paula had taken a group of about 15 kids to his sentencing hearing in Lexington, Ky., five years earlier, and the judge in the case was so moved by Francisco's speech to those youth that he said he knocked 20 years off his original planned sentence.

"He's just doing great since he got back," Andy Smith said, referencing Francisco's work in the gym as well as his job at Capital Toyota.

"Boxing has rescued me, that's really the truth," Francisco said.

"Joseph had a rough start when he turned professional. He took some fights on short notice, hence his 1-2 record," Andy Smith said. "Our focus is to get his record turned around and get him back on a winning streak so we can move him through the ranks.

"Joseph and Roger are compete opposites when it comes to boxing style. Roger is a southpaw and Joseph is orthodox."

The main difference, Hilley said, "is that he's all speed and I'm more power. He moves around a lot."

"Hit Man" Hilley didn't progress in boxing as fast as his brother in the early years, but when he discovered his power at about the age of 16 he took more of an interest and accelerated his development.

"He is a two-time world amateur champion and has competed in Olympic trials," Andy Smith said. "He will make a great professional because of his punching power and his heart."

Hilley had to get his heart right, first, however. He was 9 when he got into YCAP and later lived with the Smiths in Hixson for four years - even through a couple of times quitting boxing - and still stayed there a lot the next couple of years.

"I knew I would have a better life there than in the projects, with drugs all around," he said. "I was always getting into trouble, even stealing food. But they taught me a lot of things outside the ring, like self-discipline, how to listen, respect - that's what built my character and channeled my energy."

But he came to try living in both worlds - "a double life," he said - and even dropped out of school before the lessons kicked in. Part of his difficulty was the loss of his "role model," Francisco, but his three Olympic Trials semifinals and his 2014 and 2015 Ringside world titles showed him what true focus could bring.

And now his brother's back, too.

Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.

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