KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The boxer is wearing sweats and a stocking cap but no shirt as he answers the door. Shh, he says. His baby boy is sleeping in the other room. Jeremiah Graziano sips hot chocolate, leaving unsaid that this half of an Overland Park, Kan., duplex is cold enough to wonder if you can see your own breath.
He likes to keep the place cold. His roommate didn't, which is why he's now the ex-roommate, and why the dry erase board on the wall screams in all capital letters:
(BLEEP) YOU IF YOU CAN'T FOLLOW (BLEEPING) DIRECTIONS THEN MOVE THE (BLEEP) OUT!!!
"I'm not a very nice guy once you push me past the point," he says.
So if you like your boxers to fit the stereotype, there it is. He is 22 years old and a bit quirky with an R-rated vocabulary and a baby with shared custody. He carries the swagger of a man who's won all nine of his professional fights by knockout. Imported from Portland, he now may be the Kansas City area's best hope for a champion since Tommy Morrison.
None of Graziano's fights have lasted beyond 10 seconds into the second round, his admittedly outclassed opponents taking early naps against the man they call "Wyson" -- get it? The white Mike Tyson.
But if you like your characters a little more nuanced, then get to know a self-described sociopath who sometimes misses the simplicity of the years he was homeless, sleeping with a roommate of sorts in his two-door Dodge Stealth.
He'd never been in a fight before taking up boxing on something of a whim, the sport choosing him in a world where most athletes choose their sport.
Boxing is Jeremiah Graziano's way to a better life. He defines better as the ability to someday do nothing. It's a vehicle from here to there, the same as an accountant or salesman.
Except retirement bliss for him would be a comfortable couch, an Xbox and no responsibilities. This is what drives him to be a champion. The ultimate motivation, he says, is to be a bum.
It's not that he loves boxing, because, well, he doesn't.
He is a terrific athlete -- he can dunk from a standing jump -- with the white skin and Italian last name that make promoters in this sport take a longer look. He trains hard, but isn't shy about saying when he feels burned out. Like now, for instance. He's on a one-month hiatus, which he'll use to bulk up and recharge his motivation.
Boxing doesn't consume him. He wants to be as good as he possibly can be -- and thinks he'll be a world champion -- but this brutal sport is still his way to that bum paradise.
We have this idea sometimes that everyone wants to be a professional athlete, that if given the choice we'd all take that lifestyle. But sometimes, the profession picks the person.
He's only here because of a chance phone call, and the realization that he was good at this.
"Really," he says, "I just ran out of (stuff) to do."
In Jeremiah Graziano's world, homelessness has its advantages. He knows because he's lived it. He is a promising boxing prospect who remains unimpressed with those ranked above him, but we'll get to that part later.
Right now, he wants to talk about living homeless. He did it for a while, in Seattle, working with his buddy collecting signatures for various petitions. They liked the city, so they did what any self-respecting young men with no responsibilities would do.
"One of us was like, 'You wanna stay?' " he says. "'Yeah, (forget) it, let's just stay. So we stayed in my car a couple months, a Dodge Stealth, this little-ass car. (Freaking) hilarious. We tried every sleeping position. You get used to it. It's like sleeping in a spaceship or something."
The words spill out of his mouth, followed quickly with a laugh that comes from deep in his chest. He takes another sip of hot chocolate while cartoons play in the background.
The key to living a good homeless life, he says, is to be smart about it. Eat cheap, calorie-dense food. A gym membership is a must. Even when he's burned out from boxing, Graziano prefers to work out every day. He dabbled in bodybuilding a while back.
The gym membership also comes with a shower, which makes it easy to maintain some level of personal hygiene. It's nice to have a real bed every once in a while, which is when Graziano turned on the charm to see if there were any young women he could crash with. In these circumstances, he jokes, it's OK to lower your standards.
If you have a car, it's usually not too hard to find a safe spot to sleep. Graziano was a car salesman for a short time, in part so he could park behind the lot for bedtime. Can't beat the commute.
This life is fun for a while, but eventually a man likes something different, which is why Graziano decided to go for a job fishing in Alaska. But just before the physical, he tore his Achilles tendon and couldn't go.
He'd never been in any fight of any kind before. But like the man says, he just ran out of (stuff) to do. His dad is a former amateur fighter, and talked his son into trying it.
"So I was just like, '(Screw) it, I guess I'll be a boxer,' " Graziano says.
Jeremiah Graziano's talent for boxing came faster than most anyone expected. He became the U.S. amateur heavyweight champion less than a year after taking up the sport.
He may not have the frame to be a heavyweight -- he's 6 feet and 210 pounds -- so his future may be as a cruiserweight. That's not a glamorous division, which is part of why John Brown -- a longtime local trainer who helped develop Morrison into heavyweight champion -- designs Graziano's style around that of Tyson.
The goal, they says, is to KMFO. The "k" stands for knock, the "o" for out, and you can fill in the rest. Graziano's stock build and fearless attitude are perfect, and the YouTube clips of his fights so far don't go long before the opponent is sprawled on the canvas.
All but one ended in the first round. He was knocked down once, but only as he twisted his ankle -- he was wearing tennis shoes instead of boxing boots. Within 18 seconds of the fight resuming, Graziano's opponent was down.
"It's going to be hard for him to fail," Brown says.
"He's destined to be a world champion," says Austin Ford, another of Graziano's trainers.
"What I see is a good offensive fighter who's all hooks and crosses but needs a jab," says Kevin Iole, who covers combat sports for Yahoo!.
"Most of the guys I've fought so far are clowns," Graziano says. "But I don't see a lot out there, a lot of scary guys. I see a lot of guys who do the same (stuff) everybody else does. We do (stuff) nobody else does."
The comparisons of Jeremiah Graziano and Tommy Morrison are inevitable. In a boxing sense, they're superficial, based entirely on both being white and trained by John Brown in Kansas City. Their styles are completely different.
But those connections mean they'll always be mentioned together.
Morrison and Brown had a rocky relationship and ugly breakup that's still emotional some 15 years later. In separate conversations with The Kansas City Star, each talked trash on the other before being asked.
Brown says Morrison was lazy and unfocused. Morrison says Brown took too much of his winnings.
"Tommy Morrison is a despicable human being," Brown says.
"I regret not punching John Brown in the mouth, that's probably the only thing," Morrison says.
Either way, Morrison had heard of Graziano when contacted by The Star, but hadn't seen any fights. Afterward, he Googled a few of Graziano's fights and sent this e-mail:
"... thought he had decent power and fairly decent speed -- but I saw 4 to 5 different fronts I could help him on. I think I can help him -- if he is willing -- he is not going to go anywhere with John Brown."
Morrison wanted to make sure Graziano knew "my door is open if he wants to get trained by a professional."
"Tommy Morrison sounds like a fun guy," Graziano says. "Those are some good things to keep on my mind and laugh about, so thanks. I appreciate you calling me, because that was hilarious."
Jeremiah Graziano says he blacks out during fights. It sounds sort of goofy. Dangerous, even. But Graziano swears he's had fights where he doesn't remember a thing between the opening bell and seeing his opponent knocked out.
There is actually scientific evidence that says the brain works up to 400 times faster on an unconscious level. Even without knowing that particular fact, Graziano feels the benefit.
"When I black out, I'm reacting and doing things effortlessly," he says. "You see things you wouldn't see. You do things that normally your body just doesn't want to do."
The rest of his boxing game is a bit of a contradiction. He knows the common wisdom says he needs to develop a jab, but he thinks that's like Shaq shooting three-pointers.
This Tyson style is famous for the violent knockouts, but one of the underrated benefits is that the boxer who does it correctly is nearly impossible to hit. Graziano doesn't want to give up his ability to speak clearly for a sport he sometimes tires of, so this is important. If he spent time with a jab, and prolonged his fights, that's more time he can get hit in the head.
Brown wants to move slowly, which is fine with Graziano. They think within a year, maybe two, that he'll have 10-round fights and then be on the brink of making a real impact in the bigger boxing world.
He talks about this future with a stoned confidence. There is no emotion over a fight, he likes to say. Fighting is easy.
Graziano has a growing appreciation for fighting, but it has more to do with what he gets out of it rather than what he puts in. He likes the primitive test of manliness. The competition. The idea that he can hit someone in the head and get paid for it.
But he doesn't love boxing. Not yet, anyway.
"No," he says. "I love that shot that ends somebody's night."
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