A Win for a Warrior
He had a bad right hand, was coming off four days of the flu, and was swallowing blood from his nose – broken in training – but local light heavyweight Chuck “The Professor” Mussachio sucked it up enough to win a split decision over Bronx brawler Victor Paz in a rough-and-tumble eight-rounder at the Wildwoods Convention Center back on November 10.

The win kept the Wildwood school teacher undefeated after 11 pro fights, five ending in knockouts. After the bitter victory, Chuckie Mussachio said to Dave Weinberg of the Press of Atlantic City, “I guess it’s better to look bad and win than look good and lose.”

Chuckie had that right after his second victory in a row against a straight-ahead, take-no-prisoners Rocky-style opponent, having decisioned Philly’s Chandler Durham on June 23 at the Birchwood Manor in Whippany, New Jersey. Durham, the nephew of the late Yancey “Yank” Durham, Joe Frazier’s trainer/manager, is trained by Marvis Frazier, “Smokin’ Joe’s” son and a former heavyweight contender himself.

In the June fight, Durham bum-rushed Mussachio at the opening bell, but Chuckie threw him off and sneered, “Is that all you got?” and proceeded to give Durham a boxing lesson, featuring his highly-educated left jab and the straight right that usually follows it. After the fight, in the Birchwood Manor corridor, sorehead Durham wanted to continue the action, but cooler heads prevailed, especially that of Marvis Frazier, a true gentleman of boxing.

The November tussle with Victor Paz wasn’t as easy for Mussachio as the Durham affair. The Bronx tough guy stayed in his face and on his chest for most of the night, and“The Professor” had to continually struggle to find room to use his superior reach and boxing ability to score points. In the second round, a Paz left hook caught the Wildwood favorite on the schnozz and he was swallowing blood from the nose the rest of the way. It had been broken during training by a seemingly negligible punch, but it caught Mussachio perfectly and the damage was done. Other than the bleeding, it held up satisfactorily against Paz, though.Mussachio had the added handicap of a tender right hand that was injured three weeks before the fight and might have been cause for a postponement, but “The Professor” didn’t want to disappoint his hometown fans, and fought through the constant pain and used the hand enough to outpoint the scowling, bald-headed Paz, who stayed after him like a pit bull.

On top of all that, Chuckie was fighting the final stages of four days of flu, which had weakened and dehydrated both him and his trainer-manager-father Al Mussachio, usually a ball of fire and the Rock of Gibraltar.

So it was a tough win but a good one for Chuck “The Professor” Mussachio, who showed a screaming Wildwood house full of supporters that not only is he a well-schooled scientific boxer, but also a blood-and-guts warrior when that kind of a rumble is called for.

As a footnote to the Mussachio victory, middleweight Patrick Majewski, a native of Poland who trained as an amateur at the Wildwood Boxing Club and now fights pro out of Atlantic City with a record of 6 and 0 with 4 KOs, starched Nick Collins of Bel Air, Maryland, in the first round with a perfectly placed liver shot that put Collins onto one knee, where he remained until counted out by ref Alan Huggins at 1 minute 48 seconds.

Bloodied but unbowed, Chuck “The Professor” Mussachio came off the ropes to score a split decision victory over Bronx slugger Victor Paz.	Thanking the boxing gods.
Middleweight Patrick Majewski, a Wildwood Boxing Club alumnus, exults with a Michael Jordan leap after a first round stoppage of Nick Collins.