Bedford boxer can handle the punch

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Maybe there’s a reason why boxers -- like pro wrestlers, rap artists and henchmen of Tony Soprano -- bestow nicknames on themselves.

It could be that their sport is so counter to so many basic human instincts (like the desire to avoid repeated punches in the face), that the ordinary Dr. Jekyll isn’t able to confront it. So he creates his own Mr. Hyde.

Thus, Scott Sigmon — who will face Toris “The Bull” Brewer of Charleston, S.C., as the main event at the Lynchburg Armory on April 11— morphs into “Cujo” on fight nights, inspiring a chorus of howls and yaps from his growing fan base.

If you’ve never read the Stephen King book of the same name, it revolved around a massive St. Bernard that contracts rabies and roams around a placid Maine countryside killing the people who had once petted it.

How does this connect with Bedford product Scott Sigmon, a generally pleasant 22-year-old who works patiently with the less physically gifted as a personal trainer at the Jamerson YMCA? It’s because Cujo is a possessed creature set on autopilot, sealed off from pain and fear by his disease.

Sigmon isn’t crazed, but once inside the ring ropes he, too, is possessed.

“Boxing doesn’t get the respect it deserves,” he said. “It gets thrown in with pro wrestling and MMA (mixed martial arts) and all that other stuff. Boxing isn’t about showmanship; it’s about the truth. There are two people in the ring, and the best man wins. That’s the truth.”

His desire to ascend to a world championship is palpable and all consuming. Opponents can see it in his eyes, and in the odd smile he flashes even when someone hits him. Especially when someone hits him. It’s a smile that mockingly asks: “Is that the best you’ve got?”

“Scott is never in doubt,” says his fiancée, fellow YMCA trainer Casey Barnes, with a smile of her own. “He knows he can’t be. Sure, it scares me a little when he fights, but his confidence kind of rubs off on me.”

Yet the remarkable thing about Sigmon’s bravado is that it comes to him based on reality, not in spite of it.

“I’m awkward,” he says, “and I’m slow. I really don’t have a style like a lot of boxers. But I can take a lot of punishment, and I just keep coming at them.”

Prior to his last fight with Frankie Filippone, a moonlighting cop from Chesapeake, Sigmon told ring announcer Freddie Corritone: “Don’t you think I’m the most aggressive, relentless fighter you’ve ever seen?”

“No,” Corritone replied, deadpan.

“But I throw a lot of punches.”

Corritone nodded.

“If you were paid by the punch,” he told Sigmon, “You’d only need one fight a year.”

The Filippone fight took place at Fluvanna County High School near Charlottesville, and lasted only two rounds. The first was nearly even, with perhaps a slight edge to Filippone. The second was no contest, and Filippone aka “The Freight Train” called it quits with an injured right hand.

Sigmon’s idol has always been Muhammad Ali, but he fights more like Joe Frazier, Ali’s archenemy. A small Joe Frazier.

“I’m probably too small to be fighting as a light heavyweight,” said Sigmon, who played football and ran cross-country at Liberty High School before gravitating to amateur boxing. At some point, chances are I’ll move down into a lighter class, like super middleweight.”

With a 5-1 professional record, Sigmon is currently ranked 74th in the U.S. in the light heavyweight division. His next opponent, Brewer, is 87th, despite having won 14 of his 16 fights.

“He hasn’t really fought anybody,” Sigmon said scornfully. “As long as boxing has fighters like Toris Brewer, boxing is sick, it’s diseased. I’m going to be the cure for the disease.”

On the Web site www.majorleaguebox

ing.com, Sigmon and Brewer are currently engaging in the time-honored boxing tradition of trash talking.

“I’m going to make Cujo into my pet,” Brewer is quoted. “He’s just a stepping stone to me. He’s nobody.”

“There’s no way he can go eight rounds with me,” Sigmon fires back.

According to Sigmon, however, there is some genuine bad blood between the two, at least from his perspective.

“I spent a little time down in Charleston a few years ago,” he said, “when I was still an amateur, and Toris came in and I sparred with him. At first, he was looking down on me, kind of laughing at me, but then I hurt him a few times, and he got mad. He said, ‘I’ll be in here tomorrow, and I want you to bring it just like that.’ But he didn’t show up.”

Both Sigmon and Brewer are listed as 5-foot-10, 178 pounds. Sigmon’s only loss came in Memphis in a fight that manager Bruce Frank said he didn’t want Sigmon to take.

“He overruled me on that one,” Frank said. “That guy was a lot more experienced.”

In this case, Frank said, Sigmon agreed to fight for less than his normal purse to help induce Brewer, who has never fought outside of the Carolinas, to venture to Lynchburg. Frank declined to give specifics for this fight, but Sigmon said he usually makes between $1,000 and $2,000 a fight. This will be less.

“Scott really wants this guy,” Frank said.

Frank, an ex-fighter who trains three other promising fighters out of his Staunton Boxing Club, is impressed by Sigmon’s durability and conditioning. But he worries about his willingness to take a punch in exchange for landing one.

“As he moves up the ladder, he’s going to face harder punchers,” Frank said. “Scott hasn’t won a first round ever, I don’t think, but always seems to weather the storm and wear the other guy down.

“He does a lot of running, and he has that cross-country background, and he’s just in great shape.”

Joe Hensley of Bedford, who will be promoting the Armory event, took that into consideration when he set up the Sigmon-Brewer fight as an eight-rounder.

“Normally I wouldn’t move a fighter up to eight rounds who’s only had six pro fights, but Scott can handle it. When he goes to the gym in Staunton, he spars 10 rounds each with Juan and George (two other members of Frank’s boxing “stable”), and isn’t even tired.”

There is no boxing gym in Lynchburg or Bedford, so Sigmon drives to Staunton at least once (and often twice) a week. In between, he works out at the Y or finds a willing sparring partner — most recently, a couple of local mixed martial arts practitioners.

Yet while Cujo may not fear any other fighter, germs are a different matter. When Hensley walked over to hug him after his victory of Filippone, Sigmon looked horrified and backed away. Hensley had earlier reported having a head cold.

“Sorry, Scott,” Hensley said. “I forgot.”

Sigmon’s fiancée can’t be in the same room with him or even the same apartment if she is feeling sick close to the time of a fight. It is also reported that he puts his toothbrush in the refrigerator to kill germs between brushing.

Meanwhile, Frank shakes his head sometimes at Sigmon’s habit of verbally antagonizing his opponents.

“He sees it as getting into their head,” Frank said. “He wants them to be so mad at him that they come out in the early rounds trying to kill him and tire themselves out. It’s funny, because he’s normally the nicest kid you’d ever want to meet.”

Six other bouts will be on the card, as well.

“They haven’t had a professional boxing show at the Armory in 27 years,” said Sigmon. “It’s way past time.”