Ringside Report Looks Back at Johnny “The Heat” Verderosa

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Mystery surrounds this week’s fighter as there is not a great deal out there to make a fuller appreciation. This covers not only his career but also of suggestions that he may have fallen on hard times. I was even struck by how a former partner of his took the opportunity to join an online forum to give an opinion. It was couched in both favorable and honorable terms.

The title of the webchat was Whatever Happened to Johnny Verderosa, 27-3, 17 KOs. I have to be honest I am not completely sure.

He was without doubt, an entertaining fighter, having got to the number 2 status for both the WBA and the WBC in the 1980’s, he did big numbers for the broadcasters as his exciting and brash character was likely to attract many fans. His fierce fighting style, however, didn’t suggest longevity in the sport. Such was his popularity with those seeking to fill schedules you can find some fights on YouTube. He made his debut in Brooklyn on the 28th of June 1979 against Charlie Brown, knocking him out in the first round in his first fight, against his first opponent and in his first contest with Charlie Brown. He returned to the ring again in Brooklyn on the 3rd of October 1979 against Charlie Brown once more, knocking him out in the second round in his second fight, against his second opponent and in his second contest with Charlie Brown…

Hailing from the same city in which he made his debut, nicknamed, “The Heat”, this junior lightweight certainly brought it into the ring. His record stands against most and his best win was probably and is certainly felt to have been when he beat Sean O’Grady and sent O’Grady into retirement. Remarkably it was O’Grady’s 86th fight so it was unlikely to be a peak performing O’Grady! 20th of March 1983, in Chicago, he stopped O’Grady in the fourth after putting him down twice.

It came after a devastating loss in his career when he faced Cornelius Boza Edwards. Boza had taken him apart. Given that Boza was supposed to be the one, apparently, who was brought in to provide a steppingstone for Verderosa, this is possibly why thereafter, the progress he had made to this point was brought into question. In a non-title fight, Boza carried a little extra going into the fight but nothing that ought to have troubled Verderosa the way that it did.

Verderosa, in fairness to him had reworked himself, went up in weight and took on O’Grady, thus giving him a signature win. He could therefore not have been at the right temperature, weight wise when he faced Boza in the Playboy Hotel in Atlantic City.

Verderosa would have had a world title fight had the WBA champion, Sammy Serrano, taken him on after Verderosa knocked Roger Mullins out in the first round on the 18th of March 1981, of a USBA featherweight title fight. But Serrano ducked him. It was the Mullins fight that got people talking and made his rise come as little surprise which would have led to world glory had his management team perhaps been a little smarter. The progress to the Boza fight was perhaps too lucrative.

The USBA featherweight title was the highest belt he was to achieve, and he got his hands on it through a points win on the 4th of June, 1981, against Enrique Solis at the Felt Forum in his home town of New York. On the 12th of November 1981, he defended it in East Rutherford against Nicky Perez and then again on the 5th of March 1982, in Atlantic City against Julio Valdez with a split decision.

His professional career came to an end when, in 1984, he fought journeyman Kel Robin who knocked him out in the 9th round. He never fought again.

But what came next?

Someone online suggested he went into construction and I am sure for many ex-fighters working a job with strength at its core is not an unusual career move once the gloves are hung up. People were suggesting too that he managed to stay a while with Teddy Atlas which might have kept him on the straight and narrow but if construction as a career seems too obvious for ex-fighters, then drugs is a cliché.

Apparently, that is the cliché road, Verderosa took.

Joining the Army to deal with his drug problems apparently did not go so well as there are reports he floored a sergeant who picked a fight with him. That presumably led to a discharge.
Some came on and told of how he was now clean. His former partner commented that, “ I dated him while he was stationed at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. He was still struggling with drugs and I suspect he would eventually get caught. I always was upset that I let a good one get away, but if has been mentioned is true……I guess it was a blessing that it didn’t work out. Really nice guy with some demons, but nice.” It came in the midst of mention of a Ring 10 meeting – Ring 10 being a charity established to help ex-fighters and who have done marvelous work – that was in 2016.

Then in 2018, reports of him being on the street.

No matter the truth of it all, it is yet again an example of a man who entertained hitting the highest for us all to see, having top hit the skids to get more attention. It is sadder as to the quality of a man who was described by another online “Johnny was a special person with a heart as big as a basketball”

Given his career that heart was evidently joined by a significant set of cahones…

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