Philly’s Pur­ple Powerhouse

Watch some of Justin Greskiewicz’s numer­ous fights on youtube, and you’ll see how tough this guy really is. He takes fights on a weeks notice against some of the top guys in the sport. He has mixed it up with Mark Deluca, Liam Har­ri­son, Turan Hasanov, and Kevin Ross to name a few. Justin seems like a hum­ble, down to earth kid from Philly hun­gry to make a name for him­self who would fight every week if you’d let him.

TMT: What did your mother say the first time she saw your pur­ple hair?

Justin Greskiewicz: Well before I dyed it pur­ple I had done a lot of other things. She had plenty of warm­ing up to the pur­ple. I had a red mohawk for a while, I had done orange, pink, and blue. I remem­ber when I was in kinder­garten I told her I wanted to get a red mohawk when I was six years old, and she said it was cool as long as she could get one too. My par­ents are really cool with the pur­ple thing, they don’t really care. When I went pur­ple is when I had my first pro win, and knock­out. It has stuck around ever since. That was a cou­ple years ago.

TMT: Do you dye all the hair on your body pur­ple or just your head?

Justin Greskiewicz: It’s actu­ally just a wig. I’m like the movie pow­der I don’t have any hair on my body.

TMT: When you’re beat­ing down your oppo­nent do you ever fan­ta­size that your beat­ing up some­body else?

Justin Greskiewicz: I don’t ever ever fan­ta­size about beat­ing some­one up. I don’t try to be a tough guy. I’m not that type of per­son. I don’t have the desire to beat any­one up for any spe­cific rea­son. I’m a com­peti­tor, and I really have a lot of love for my oppo­nents because I know what it takes. I know how long they have been train­ing. I know all the stuff a fighter has given up to get in the ring. I respect that, I know what it’s like. I don’t have to psy­che myself up to do it. It’s all about the sport. I don’t want to fight out­side the ring. I’m not the type of guy that needs to solve things with vio­lence. This is a sport that I love, and I want to take it where I can go with it. I don’t have any inher­ent feel­ing to fight out­side the ring.

TMT: I was watch­ing your fight with Kevin Ross at the Hilton in Las Vegas, NV. I’ve seen Ross fight before, and it seemed that he came out extremely focused, and aggres­sive. I thought you did a good job match­ing his aggression.

Justin Greskiewicz: When I fought Kevin Ross I got that fight on super late notice. Ross orig­i­nally was sched­uled to fight WBC Super Light­weight Inter­na­tional Cham­pion Kang En in a rematch of their con­tro­ver­sial fight in Bei­jing, which Ross lost by unan­i­mous deci­sion. It was sup­posed to be a card of all Amer­i­can fight­ers vs. Chi­nese fight­ers. They brought the Chi­nese fight­ers over but got them tourist visas instead of work visas. They left the coun­try but when they got to the U.S. they couldn’t fight. I had fought the week­end before, and took the Kevin Ross fight on eight days notice.

I knew I was in shape but I didn’t train that week because I had just fought, and I was kind of banged up. When I stepped in the ring I thought I was mov­ing around with him well. Kevin had trained harder then he ever had before. He was ready to do it. I stepped in there and thought I was going to be able to take it to him a lit­tle bit. After the first round I kind of lost my legs. The way it ended was he kicked me in the face with a front kick, and his toe went in my eye. The ref­eree stopped the fight. He was win­ning the fight up to that point. It cer­tainly wasn’t my best fight, and I would love to get in there with him again some­time. He’s the man right now in the United States pound for pound to try to beat.

TMT: After his toe went in your eye could you see?

Justin Greskiewicz: No I couldn’t see. his toe went right into my eye, and cut my eye­ball. There was blood com­ing out of my eye­ball. The ref­eree stopped it immediately. 

Kevin Ross Vs Justin Greskiewicz Part 1 

Kevin Ross Vs Justin Greskiewicz Part 2 

TMT: You just defeated Turan Hasanov by split deci­sion in New York at Fri­day Night Fights. How many times have you fought him?

Justin Greskiewicz: This last fight with him was the third. The first fight I won. The sec­ond one was in April. It was a split deci­sion, and they gave it to him. In my opin­ion, I won every round no prob­lem. I thought I con­trolled him every­where. I out punched, kicked, and kneed him. I think the only thing he could have outscored me in was aggres­sion, but he was just kind of swing­ing, and not really land­ing much. There was a desire for us to do it a third time which we did on Fri­day, and I won the deci­sion. I actu­ally think this fight on Fri­day was closer than the last one. I thought I beat him the other time too.

TMT: In your first fight with Turan Hasanov it seemed that he hurt you in the end of the sec­ond round, and was doing his best to try to fin­ish you off.

Justin Greskiewicz: He caught me a few times. In the end of the sec­ond round he kind of put me in the cor­ner, and he wob­bled me pretty good. I was able to stick in there, and smash his leg, before he could get in again.

Justin Greskiewicz’s first fight with Turan Hasanov 

TMT: Is full rules Muay Thai still ille­gal in New York?

Justin Greskiewicz: They don’t allow any elbows in New York. There is no MMA either. There is no ath­letic com­mis­sion other than the box­ing com­mis­sion. The MMA, and Box­ing guys don’t have their hands on Muay Thai. Muay Thai is its own sep­a­rate thing. The Fri­day Night Fights are all modified.

TMT: I was watch­ing your fight Mark Deluca. It seemed in the sec­ond round you were land­ing some nice right crosses. When you started the third round you were doing the same thing with the right cross. Did you see an open­ing, and just want to exploit that?

Justin Greskiewicz: I fought Mark Deluca almost two years before that. I lost, and he stopped me with punches in the fifth round. I got up ready to go but the ref­eree told me I shouldn’t con­tinue. It was kind of a bum­mer. I’d rather die in the ring then to have some­one tell me to stop. As a com­peti­tor it’s not some­thing you want to hear.

The sec­ond time that your talk­ing about I had a lot more expe­ri­ence. That was my sec­ond pro fight the first time I fought him. The sec­ond time I fought him I was ready to go. I had just fought a cou­ple tough oppo­nents. I knew if I pushed the pace I could end it. It wasn’t just the right hand. The last time I put him down, I think I hurt him mostly with the left hook. It was a com­bi­na­tion of punches, knees, and leg kicks that dropped him.

Justin Greskiewicz’s sec­ond fight with Mark Deluca

TMT: Who would you like your next oppo­nent to be?

Justin Greskiewicz: I don’t know. There are a few guys that I’d like to get back in the ring with that I fought before. There are a few guys that I haven’t fought yet who I’d like to fight. I’m going to be fight­ing very often. I have three draws, and a cou­ple losses on my record that I really don’t think I should have on there. I’d like to clear all those up. I’d like to push myself, and try to fight the best in the world. There are a bunch of good fight­ers in the U.K., and in Hol­land. I’d love to get in there, and mix it up with them.