Calvin Brock

Calvin Vance Brock (born January 22, 1975) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 2001 to 2007.

He won the Golden Gloves heavyweight championship in 1998, and the United States national amateur super heavyweight championship in 1999.

Brock earned a degree in finance from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte in 1999 and took a job as a banker in the Bank of America.

He appeared in a Bank of America ad, in which he was referred to as "The Boxing Banker", which ultimately became his nickname.

Brock soon left the job in order to concentrate on his boxing career.

Brock had a notable amateur boxing career.

He qualified at the 2000 Summer Olympics super heavyweight tournament after narrowly beating one-time conqueror T.J.Wilson in the qualification, but lost to Paolo Vidoz in the first round.

During the Olympics, he was a teammate of future world champions Jermain Taylor, Jeff Lacy, and Brian Viloria.

Brock ended his amateur career with 147–38 record.

Brock made his professional debut on February 11, 2001, knocking out Zibielee Kimbrough in the third round.

He built up a 23–0 record with 19 knockouts before stepping up in competition, facing Clifford Etienne.

Etienne, once highly regarded prospect, was looking for a way to regain his stock after being knocked out by Mike Tyson and Fres Oquendo.

Coming into the bout, Etienne was 5–0–1 in his last six fights.

The bout took place at Reliant Center in Houston, Texas, and was aired on ESPN2.

Brock knocked down Etienne three times, once in round two and twice in round three, with the referee stopping the fight after the third knockdown, declaring Brock the winner by third-round TKO.

Afterwards, Brock took a big step up in competition when he agreed to face Jameel McCline on 23 April, just three months after beating Etienne.

McCline, ranked No.8 heavyweight in the world by The Ring at the time, was coming off of a razor-thin split decision loss to Chris Byrd for IBF world heavyweight title in what was described as an entertaining fight, and was viewed as the favorite coming into the Brock bout.

The fight was scheduled to take place at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada and was televised on ESPN as part of the undercard of the pay-per-view fight between Antonio Margarito and Kermit Cintrón.

Brock weighed in at 218 lb and was outweighed by McCline by 47 lb.

The fight started with McCline trying to work behind the jab, while Brock tried to close the distance, working primarily McCline's body.

In the middle rounds, Brock largely outboxed McCline using bob and weave strategy, but was knocked down in the seventh round with a short left hook followed by a right hand.

Brock got up from the knockdown and finished the round strong and proceeded to outbox McCline for the remaining of the fight.

The bout went full ten rounds, with Brock being declared the winner by unanimous decision (UD), with scores 97–93, 96–94 and 96–93.

The fight was praised by critics, with prominent coach Teddy Atlas predicting a bright future for Brock in the heavyweight division.

The win over McCline allowed Brock to enter The Ring heavyweight rankings.

He was also ranked within top ten by all major sanctioning bodies.

In an ESPN interview in July of that year, former world heavyweight champion Mike Tyson picked Brock and Samuel Peter as his favorite fighters from the new crop of heavyweights.

He was ranked as the world's No.7 heavyweight by The Ring at the conclusion of 2005.

Calvin Brock was trained by Tom Yankello.

On November 19, 2005, Brock faced David Bostice for IBA Continental Americas heavyweight title, making it the first fight in Brock's professional career with a title, albeit lightly regarded, on the line.

Bostice, who had a 35–9–1 record coming into the fight, was described as a "tough veteran", with most of his previous losses coming at the hands of former world heavyweight champions and contenders, such as Wladimir Klitschko, Tim Witherspoon, Francois Botha and Jeremy Williams.

The fight took place at Cricket Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, Brock's hometown.

Both fighters fought aggressively from the opening bell, with Brock seemingly doing the better work in the early rounds, going back-and-forth between combinations to the head and body and not allowing Bostice to fire back.

Brock appeared to be tired going into the middle rounds, fighting rather defensively, but picked up his pace after the seventh, hurting Bostice several times and almost stopping him in the ninth round.

The twelfth round saw both fighters slugging it out, with the crowd chanting "Calvin! Calvin! Calvin!".

In 2006, he won Ring Magazine's Knockout of the Year for his win against Zuri Lawrence and challenged for the IBF and IBO heavyweight titles.

Brock was forced to retire after receiving retinal damage in his right eye following his loss to Eddie Chambers.

Brock was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina in a middle-class family.

He became a fan of boxing as a kid, prompting his father to take him to the gym when he was 10 years old, where he was told to come back when he's 12.

Brock returned to that gym five months after turning 12, losing his first six bouts.