By GAGE WILSON
Glasgow News 1
Glasgow-based gym Ringside Elite Boxing has, once again, seen one of its fighters bring home a belt and trophy. But for 41-year-old Stephen Stephano, the super lightweight title he claimed at the Nashville-based Slugfest represents more than four wins in a single night; it marks the latest stage in a long and hard fought transformation.
Stephano won four matches under the guidance of coach and gym owner Dalton Newton to secure the belt, navigating a 16-man, single-elimination tournament.
His story, however, began far from the bright lights of a ring.
Stephano grew up on the West Coast amid poverty, drugs and instability.
“I never really had a ‘hometown’ because I was bounced around from family member to family member, household to household,” he explained. “It was never a good environment…. I learned real quick that in order to get respect, you had to fight.”
At 18, Stephano made his way to Bowling Green and soon after joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving eight years on active duty. His career shifted dramatically after a shoulder injury sustained while on duty in Africa.
“I went to rehab when I got back for my shoulder,” he recalled. “I had lost around 80-percent of range of motion in my arm.”
Though he could have remained in service in a clerical role, Stephano declined.
“If I stayed in I would be what they called a ‘Career Planner,’ basically a person that sits at a desk and does re-enlistments for people,” he said. “I told them, I can’t do that.”
By the summer of 2012, he was living out of his car, working and sending what money he could to his children while moving between Bowling Green and Indianapolis. A call from a fellow Marine opened the door to a job driving for a four-star general. Stephano took it with a singular goal: save enough to return to Kentucky and start over.
“What I really wanted to do was get back to Kentucky, because this to me has always felt like home,” he said.
But progress is rarely linear. Unable to save enough to return immediately, Stephano later joined the New Orleans Police Department, serving around five years as an officer. In 2017, his partner, Officer Marcus McNeil, was killed while investigating a suspicious person call –- a loss Stephano described as a turning point.
“When he got killed, that changed something in me,” Stephano said, reflecting on the aftermath and the disillusionment that followed.
Eventually, he found himself back in Kentucky – and back inside a gym.
“I’ve been eleven years out of fighting because of my shoulder. I was so afraid that I would injure my shoulder again,” Stephano said. “I didn’t want my shoulder to get hurt again because that was the most depressing point in my life.”
Newton remembers their first meeting clearly.
“Stephen walks into the gym, I remember it was a Friday. Big smile, big heart,” Newton said. “He was telling me about the shoulder injury and where he can go – explaining what I would call ‘speed bumps.’”
Stephano laid out footage from his past in kickboxing and MMA.
“Here is all the information, here’s everything on the table, you just tell me if there’s anything salvageable,” Newton recalled him saying.
As Newton studied the material, he said he wasn’t only evaluating Stephano as a fighter.
“I’m looking at him not just from a fighting standpoint, but as a person – what kind of person is Stephen? Who is Stephen Stephano? I’m seeing a lot more good than bad.”
In the fall of 2025, Stephano stepped into the boxing ring in Nashville for his debut match in the sport. He had previously competed only in kickboxing and MMA.
“For the first time in a while, I felt like I stepped into a ring and felt like how I felt in my 20’s,” he said. “Like nothing mattered, it was just me and you.”
He knocked out his opponent in the second round.
The win reignited something.
“I almost felt like I had that ‘Veteran Mentality’ back,” he said.
So when the Slugfest tournament surfaced, it felt like a challenge worth taking.
“It’s hard enough fighting one time, but three or four times? You really have to make sure your mental, character, physical discipline is right where it needs to be,” Stephano said.
Unlike some competitors, he said he felt calm waiting for his name to be called. Only his second opponent gave him pause.
“I knew he had the power to knock me out,” he said. “It played out exactly as I had planned because he was overly aggressive…as soon as I could catch him with a few jabs and push him back he kept dropping his hands.
“It only took me 50 seconds to put him to sleep.”
By the end of the night, Stephano stood with the super lightweight belt – a tangible marker of how far he had come from the instability of his youth, the uncertainty of injury and the seasons of starting over.
Newton and Stephano now have their sights set on a kickboxing match in March, with hopes of similar success. After that, Stephano aims to compete in a tournament of champions in Las Vegas before eventually retiring and potentially stepping into a coaching role at Ringside.
He has also turned to writing, authoring “The Valley and the Way,” a semi-autobiographical work drawn from the more difficult chapters of his life.
For a man who once said he never really had a hometown, Stephano now speaks of Ringside differently.
“We’re a family,” he said.
And after years of fighting simply to survive, he now fights from a place that finally feels like home.
