He’s gone from seat belt to title belt.
Lengthy Island college bus driver Wendy Toussaint is shifting at a mile a minute, moonlighting as a champion boxer.
“The kids get so excited about it, they always tell their parents I’m a professional fighter,” Toussaint, 33, instructed The Put up following his IBF USBA junior middleweight title win over Olympian Joe Hicks Jr. on June 6.
“They ask me, ‘Does it hurt getting punched in the face?’ ‘Did you make a million dollars already?’ ” the 17-3 champ mentioned, including he’ll kindly level out to college students that he wouldn’t be a bus driver in Deer Park on a seven-figure earnings.
Toussaint has his eyes on the large prize, nevertheless, as his administration and coaching group at Heavy Hitters Boxing in Ronkonkoma determine he’s solely about two wins away from garnering nationwide consideration.
“I’ve been waiting for some time, hoping something happens,” he mentioned. “The fact that I know I will get a shot at the big stage, that is the motivation.”
Going the space
Toussaint didn’t exaggerate when he mentioned “some time” — 23 years to be actual.
Initially from Haiti and raised in French Guiana, Toussaint started boxing on the age of 10 after some trainers acknowledged his exceptional energy and quickness.
He rapidly rose by the ranks of beginner combating, however realized that shifting to America together with his mom was in the perfect curiosity of getting an opportunity to make it huge.
After arriving at 17 and later turning into a U.S. citizen, Toussaint, nicknamed “The Haitian Fire,” was decided to maintain getting higher within the ring however wanted to pay the payments whereas doing so.
“It’s not easy, I try to help my mother,” he mentioned. “I was doing home health care for seniors, I worked in a factory and worked security before driving the bus.” He was additionally a volunteer firefighter in Wyandanch.
Toussaint discovered that bus driving, his job for the previous six years, was ideally suited for the opposite gig.
“After morning drop off, I can go train, pick the kids up in the afternoon, and then go train more,” he mentioned.
None of it appears like grunt work, however reasonably a blessing to the 154-pounder.
“I would do all these things because sometimes you make dreams about something, but it doesn’t happen,” he mentioned.
“You get that feeling when you start to succeed, you feel a little light, you say, ‘Wow, I like it, I want to keep looking at that light’ and keep pushing.”
He’s additionally develop into an icon in his Caribbean house nation as tons of followers tune in to look at him on the canvas, brawl after brawl.
“They are like, ‘Oh my God, this is impressive!’ They think I’m rich, but I say, ‘No chance,’ ” he joked.
Full throttle
When Toussaint switches gears into his formidable boxing mode, the candy and protected driver swerves into one thing rather more mighty.
“Every time I get in the ring, it’s like you did something to my mother. We’re really gonna fight,” he mentioned.
“It’s like an apocalypse.”
Toussaint mentioned this time is now an important for his profession, as the subsequent two fighters he squares off towards could decide the trajectory of his boxing profession — and a shot at buying and selling the bus for a candy sports activities automotive.
He is able to transfer full velocity forward with the identical confidence he radiated forward of the Hicks battle.
“I knew I was gonna beat him up,” Toussaint boasted. “Now, I feel like I am on top of the mountain. I’m so excited.”
It doesn’t matter what adversity lies forward, Toussaint is aware of he can steer the course after all the things that’s introduced him up to now.
“Even coming here to America, it’s not easy,” he mentioned. “I don’t have the money yet, but I’m living in the American dream.”
