Aaron Jaco's origin story is rougher than most guests who sit down on Sarasota SpeaX. He and his identical twin brother spent time as foster kids, moved through roughly five schools in a single year, and grew up around a father, a former pro boxer who fought Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas and beat Razor Ruddock before Tyson did, who was often away for fights. Jaco says he and his brother kept each other alive during a childhood surrounded by violence and drug abuse, and credits that bond, more than any coach, for getting him through it. His own first fight came at 16, four days' notice, against a 23-year-old, which he won.
That scrappy foundation now runs a gym on Constitution Street that Jaco says trains everyone from seven-year-olds to an 84-year-old client fighting Parkinson's. He name-checks his current fighters on air, including Nico Costa and Geiser Reyes, a boxer who escaped Cuba to join the team, and tells the story of a kid who lost his first 19 fights with Uppercut before becoming, in Jaco's telling, the state champion and top dog in the gym. Jaco himself came out of a six-year retirement at 36, took one warmup pro fight, then accepted a call to fight Kelly Pavlik, then ranked number one in the world, on 25 days' notice, and lost.
Building Without a Trainer Jaco says neither he nor his brother ever hired a trainer themselves, training each other instead, a fact he holds up as proof that instinct and grit can take a fighter to the top level even without formal coaching. He is candid about what it costs: he argues fighting only works as a career if it is the only thing you are trying to build, since a family and a business at the same time nearly broke him. He describes starting Uppercut in his carport with a single heavy bag before scaling it into the two-story facility he is now expanding, with a weight room, boxing floor and rooftop pickleball court.
Asked about Sarasota's roundabouts, Jaco calls them a mixed bag, useful for keeping traffic moving in theory but pointless if a wreck happens inside one anyway, a hazard he says his own daughter struggled with the first time she drove one. He closes by pointing the show toward Ryan Kobel, a Sarasota-based business partner of boxing manager Al Haymon, and toward Urban Meyer, who he says trains at his gym.
What you'll take away
- Jaco and his twin brother spent time as foster kids and credit each other with surviving a difficult childhood before both became professional boxers
- Uppercut Boxing and Fitness trains clients from age seven to 84, including a state champion who lost his first 19 fights before turning his career around
- Neither Jaco nor his brother ever hired a boxing trainer, training each other from the start of their careers
- Jaco came out of a six-year retirement to fight top-ranked Kelly Pavlik on 25 days' notice and lost, illustrating how hard it is to return to elite competition
- He is expanding his gym into a two-story facility with a rooftop pickleball court and basketball hoop
“If you decide to be a fighter, my advice to you is you better do fighting only.”
“I trained myself, and I still made it to fight the number one guy in the world.”
Places mentioned: Constitution Street