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The Arena’s Chartoi Boxing Brothers

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Leon and Adam Chartoi are Chechen born boxers raised in Sweden, who came to train at The Arena with Boxing Coaches Joe Vargas and Basheer Abdullah. Check out their story as they work there way up the amateur ranks and become Professional Fighters.

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Leon Chartoi:
My name is Leon Chartoi. I’m a boxer from Sweden. I was born in Grozny, Chechnya. My family moved to Sweden in 2001. I was 11 years old. So I was both raised in Chechnya and in Sweden. Five times Swedish champion, three times Scandinavian champion. Now looking to make my professional debut here in US.

Adam Chartoi:
Hi, my name is Adam, 20 years old. I’m a fighter out of Sweden, originally from Chechnya. I’ve had over 200 fights, around 30 fights international.

Leon Chartoi:
Well at five or six years of age I got into the martial arts by my father because in Chechnya kids they like fighting, they like wrestling. So it’s a national thing there. And when we moved to Sweden, I started boxing and wrestling. From that on I fell in love with boxing and that’s when I got my brother involved in boxing as well. So he was only three years old at that point.

Adam Chartoi:
I remember that my father told my brother to take me with him, everywhere he went.

Leon Chartoi:
I was holding his hands and we were just going to the boxing gym every day.

Adam Chartoi:
You know, he would go to the practice and I would go with him even though sometimes I didn’t train. I was watching him learning and yeah, that was pretty much every day for me.

Leon Chartoi:
He has grown up in the boxing gym. His first boxing match was actually at six years old, yes it looked pretty funny because they were so small with the boxing helmet and the boxing gloves. One boxing glove was bigger than like half of him, so.

Adam Chartoi:
As time went by and I got more mature, I found a passion for it and it was something that I was good at and I felt I could be myself when I’m in the ring and I believe that I was brought to this earth to box and hopefully we can become a world champion. I have the Nationals in June, so we’ll be focusing on that now. Later on, we’ll be having the European Championships, the World Championships, and the main goal is to go to the Olympics, to qualify and hopefully get a medal for Sweden.

Leon Chartoi:
Right now we’re living in San Diego. I’m training at the arena with training coach Basheer Abdullah and Joe Vargas. I’ve been there for two months now and all the focus is on in training, so it’s like two sessions a day Monday to Friday, Saturday we have our own trainings and we rest on Sundays.

Adam Chartoi:
I’m very pleased with the training that I have at The Arena. The coaches are amazing. I trained with Basheer and he’s definitely one of a kind. The focus that I have when he talks is nothing like I’d had in Sweden. So I will take a lot from this and when I go back to Sweden. I will hopefully continue with what I’ve learned here.

Leon Chartoi:
I would like to thank The Arena, all the guys from the top to the fighters and everybody because they’re really making us feel at home.

Adam Chartoi:
Everyone is so nice to me and my brother. All welcome us with open arms and we are truly grateful and I want to thank my family, especially my father for financing me this trip.

Leon Chartoi:
Of course, to our family back home. Our father is still working hard, making us come here, and yeah, chase our dreams.

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