Shaler grad Anthony Venezia building toward professional career in boxing

Anthony Venezia dreamed of being a professional athlete. Venezia’s initial hope was that he could carve out a path to Major League Baseball. While Venezia was a solid college player at Cal (Pa.), he found out baseball wasn’t going to take him there.

Instead, Venezia picked up boxing in October of 2022. Venezia’s progress in training in the sweet science has earned him some accolades at the amateur level.

Venezia recently won the Western Pennsylvania Golden Gloves championship at 156 pounds.

“It definitely has its challenges, starting the sport later in life, but having the coaches and team that I do makes it easier because they give us experience that I couldn’t thank them enough for,” Venezia said. “We travel around sparring to get different looks. They also take us down to Miami to train and spar with pro fighters and other experienced boxers.”

Venezia fought up a little bit in weight at the Golden Gloves. He said he would prefer to fight at between 145 to 150 pounds in amateur or professional fights. That would put him in welterweight according to boxing standards.

Winning the Golden Gloves was an honor for Venezia.

“I thought the Golden Gloves was a great opportunity to take part in with my coaches and trainers and team,” Venezia said. “It allowed me to display everything they have taught me and all the hard work I put in.”

Venezia, a 2017 Shaler graduate, was a productive college player with the Vulcans. His senior season was his best year in 2022. Venezia had a career-high batting average of .282 and also contributed a career-best five home runs, nine doubles and 24 RBIs.

Late in his senior year of college, Venezia was introduced to boxing.

“I knew I wanted to fight, so I put my head down and got to work day in and day out,” Venezia said.

Venezia, who works for Enterprise, trains under Michael Manna. Known as the “Pittsburgh Bull,” Manna has 13 professional fights under his belt, the most recent in December of last year.

“The most challenging part of balancing work and training is focusing on both of them at the same time,” Venezia said. “But it takes discipline to be able to do it. Especially on days when you’re tired or have other obligations to take care of.”

Typically, a day will start in the gym with Venezia working out with Manna at 5:30 a.m. Venezia will go back to work until after 5 p.m. then head back to the gym.

“I want to stay on a strict schedule,” Venezia said. “Having the hardworking team of coaches and fighters around me makes all the work easier than it sounds because we all push each other day in and day out to better ourselves in the ring and outside of the ring.”

Venezia said he prefers to employ an aggressive style of boxing. He likes to switch the pace to keep opponents off balance. Venezia is off to a 9-2 start in his amateur career.

“The goal is to fight professionally once I’m ready to compete at that level,” Venezia said. “My goal was always to be a professional athlete, which I thought was going to be baseball. God had other plans for me. I will do what it takes to be a professional athlete in boxing.”