Fairfield boxer earns coveted spot fighting at one of the biggest bouts of the year

Jul. 1—Justin Rolfe would have been quite happy just to have a ticket to watch the battle for the world heavyweight boxing championship between Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder in Las Vegas come July 24.

That third fight between Fury and Wilder — the first ended as a draw and Fury won the rematch by seventh-round technical knockout — is the most anticipated bout of 2021 in boxing circles, with Fury seeking to retain the World Boxing Council and Ring magazine championship belts against Wilder, the former World Boxing Council champion.

"Fury's my favorite active heavyweight right now," said Rolfe, a 29-year-old heavyweight from Fairfield. "I've watched his last two fights with Wilder thinking how cool it would be to be there and how awesome it would be to box in that stadium."

Suddenly Rolfe will get a chance to do just that, as the newly crowned American Boxing Federation Atlantic heavyweight champion on Wednesday agreed to a four-round bout against Steve Torres on the Fury-Wilder III undercard at the 18,000-seat T-Mobile Arena.

The bout will mark not only Rolfe's first professional fight outside New England but the opportunity to display his skills in front of representatives for the country's two leading boxing promotions, Premier Boxing Champions and Top Rank Boxing.

"I'm still trying to catch up to everything because I couldn't have dreamed that all of this would happen so quickly," Rolfe said. "If somebody would have told me this before I would have laughed at them."

The Rolfe-Torres bout was set up by Rolfe's promoter for the past year, Chris Traietti of Granite Chin Promotions of Quincy, Massachusetts, and was in the works before Rolfe scored an eight-round unanimous decision over Jose Corral in the co-main event of a Granite Chin show at Derry, New Hampshire, last Saturday to win the ABF Atlantic title.

"I kind of knew this might happen before that fight but you never want to drop something like that on a fighter before he gets in the ring," Traietti said. "I wanted him to focus on the task at hand."

Traietti subsequently reached out to Rolfe and trainer Michael Leary, and both were eager to accept the Torres fight.

"In order to get attention in the boxing business fighters have to fight," Traietti said. "Justin's stepping up and with risk comes rewards. If he takes out Steve Torres, they'll know who he is and all of a sudden Justin Rolfe isn't the guy from northern Maine that Granite Chin is bringing in to fight Torres. All of a sudden Justin Rolfe is a prospect."

Rolfe will enter the bout with a 6-2-1 record and four knockouts. Torres, a Reading, Pennsylvania, product who is promoted by Premier Boxing Champions' Al Haymon, is 4-0 with four knockouts.

At 6-foot-7, the 23-year-old Torres will have an 8-inch height advantage over Rolfe.

"He's a good fighter but I know I'm a good fighter," said Rolfe, whose training partners include Troy Marriner from Wyman's Boxing Club in Stockton Springs. "We're going to work on closing the distance, bobbing and weaving, and what to do once I close the distance and not allow him to create distance because at the end of his punches is where I need to not be."

Rolfe already was scheduled to defend his American Boxing Federation Atlantic title on Aug. 28, most likely back in New Hampshire, but both the fighter and his promoter know that success in the Las Vegas limelight could be a career changer.

"The stakes of this are pretty high," Traietti said. "If he goes out and wins this, which I think he very well can, his next fight is not going to be on a Granite Chin show, they're going to bring him back, and his next fight might not be a four-rounder, we might be talking about eight where it's on [Fox Sports 1 television] as a co-feature."

Rolfe knows this won't be just another fight for him, but he plans to enter the ring July 24 with his usual intent in mind.

"I'm going to give nothing less than 110 percent and I'm going to do everything I can to seize this opportunity," he said. "I'm not going to go in there with anything on my mind but winning."