Franklin’s preeminent boxer has entered the world of competitive fighting.
For the past several years Jeffrey Epps has been the sport’s top local proponent, coaching students at Kavod Fitness and training to compete himself. After winning his recent amateur debut, Epps says he’s just getting started.
“The way I first got into boxing was actually a bet. It was me and one of my friends years ago – he was actually one of my groomsmen,” said Epps. “He still hasn’t given me my $100 yet, but we were both over 300 pounds and we wanted to get healthy. We said, ‘Hey, what’s something that we can do to get healthy?’ and we said the first person to get below 300 to 285 gives the other one 100 bucks. I found a boxing gym in Bamberg, South Carolina, and I started boxing there and I loved it.”
As a former competitive bodybuilder of roughly 350 pounds, Epps’ doctor told him to lose weight in order to avoid knee surgery. After roughly eight months of training Epps relocated to Franklin, where he happened to meet former boxing guru Reggie Holland.
“As a matter of fact I’m kind of living off his legacy a little bit, but he taught boxing for years, and he was a Golden Glove champion,” said Epps, referring to the sport’s national amateur governing body. “I was on the treadmill, and he goes, ‘Hey, you ever box?’ I said, ‘A little bit,’ and he goes, ‘You should come to my boxing class.’ At the time he was teaching boxing down at the fairgrounds … so I do a class, and immediately he puts me in the ring. He’s like, ‘You’re going to spar,’ and I’m like, ‘I didn’t sign up for that!’”
After throwing him headfirst into the deep end, Holland took Epps under his wing, sharing coaching tips, life advice and even a key to his boxing ring. After Holland’s untimely death from a 2020 motorcycle wreck, Epps felt compelled to continue his friend’s work.
“I had lunch with his wife one day, and she said, ‘You know, I think I’m going to have to give up the boxing ring,’” he said. “Well, I knew what it was doing for me. Not only was it getting me in shape, but it was helping me be more disciplined, it was helping me get my spirituality right – I prayed more, I paid attention more, I was more settled in my life, I wasn’t doing crazy stuff anymore. … I said, ‘I know you don’t know me a whole lot, but I don’t think I’m going to move –Franklin’s home for me. I would love to continue boxing, I don’t want this to stop, I know what it’s doing for me.’ I said, ‘I’ll volunteer and just keep this open,’ and she was like, ‘OK, I trust you with it.’ She actually signed the ring over to me, so that’s actually my boxing ring now, and I’ve been teaching boxing ever since.”
Having taken on Holland’s mantle both physically and spiritually, Epps has been coaching full-time at Kavod since 2021, teaching classes in boxing, bodybuilding and CrossFit. In that same time, his own career has also taken off.
“Back with Reggie, the first time I actually stepped into the ring I did what’s called a smoker,” he said. “I did the Roughest and Toughest in Waynesville, and the first year I did the Roughest and Toughest competition I actually got second place. I was like, ‘Whoa, this is crazy,’ – it was a big, huge adrenaline rush, and I just fell in love with it. It was weird because I actually got knocked out. … Everybody at that match saw that I was beating him, but because of one mistake, I didn’t finish well.”
“So, that kind of sat with me for a couple of years, and I was like, “I’ve got to fight again.” … Well, by that time my coach had passed away, and so I had to get another coach to kind of help me navigate through all those things. Danny [Antoine] started coaching me and helping me navigate through the mindset stuff – that’s the most important thing. He’s like, ‘You’ve got the athleticism, you have the strength, you have the speed, you have the power – we’ve got to work on your mindset.’ And so I fought again in the Toughman in 2024, and I won the whole tournament.”
After a multi-year hiatus and the death of his former mentor, Epps finally got back on the horse with help from Antoine. Armed with a new coach and a new outlook on the sport, he now has his sights set on even loftier goals.
“I’ve always wanted to do an amateur boxing match – with amateur boxing matches, you can chase different things that you can’t chase in the Toughman,” he said. “I can chase Golden Gloves now, I can chase regional championships, I can chase national championships – amateurs is the way into professional boxing. I myself may never get there because I’m older, and I started later. Granted, I haven’t taken the abuse that a lot of amateur boxers have taken because I started later, but who knows? Maybe I can still get a pro fight under my belt.”
At 37, Epps competes in the amateur circuit’s Masters Division, for fighters ages 35 and up. Recently, he made his official debut in style.
“I had no idea who my opponent was, [because] anybody under novice in most of these cases, you’re not going to find film on,” he said of his first-ever amateur fight in Asheville April 12. “The first round, I was super-nervous. I would throw my jab, I would catch his jab, I’d slip a couple punches, and then towards the end of the first round it was like, “OK, I can throw my jab, I’m moving, this guy can barely hit me – this fight’s over. There was a time where he did hit me – he hit me once, and I responded well. … I ended up winning the fight by TKO, which is a technical knockout, in the second round.”
With a technical knockout in his amateur debut and another big win in Cartersville, Georgia, July 12, Epps has become one of the area’s top up-and-comers. Eventually, he says he’d like to compete for an amateur title.
“For Golden Gloves, it’s … kind of the top-notch, best boxer in each weight class per state, so every state has a Golden Glove champion or has a Golden Glove tournament,” he said. “Before you go to the tournament you have to have at least 10 fights under your belt, so right now I’m still a novice – I have less than 10 fights. Once I get past 10 fights, I’ll be in what’s called the Open Division. Once I get into the Open Division, I could potentially fight somebody who has 20 fights or 30 fights or whatever that may be. Once that happens, if I qualify and win enough tournaments, you’ll have like a qualifying tournament to go to Golden Gloves. … Once you qualify for the Golden Gloves, then you go to the actual tournament and you fight for Golden Gloves for that state.”
While Epps is still far away from a Golden Glove, the results from his early fights have been encouraging. Even if he never reaches the professional ranks, he hopes to one day help one of his students achieve the goal.
“Currently I don’t have any pro boxers, but that’s a dream – I don’t see why a professional boxer can’t come out of Franklin, North Carolina,” he said. “It would be cool to see someone who starts young and just fights as long as they want to, and prayerfully, if their desire is to go pro, then they go pro. If they don’t and they just want to stick with amateurs, hey, that’s awesome too. The sky’s the limit for them; I’m just the guy to help facilitate the journey and help navigate it.”
“No other sport for me – and this is probably why I love this sport so much – has correlated to my spiritual walk and my walk with God than boxing. There are things that my late coach used to say that I still hear in my head when I’m training – ‘Don’t move to that position, because you can’t throw a punch; move your head; get out of the corner; move your feet’ – I still hear his voice in my head sometimes. I love that because my new coach who’s coaching me through those things is saying the same thing, so it’s an affirmation of like, ‘Oh, this is what I need to do.’”
For information about Epps’ classes or to donate to the program, visit Kavod Boxing at 791 Ulco Dr., Unit C, or call the gym at 828-421-3386.