He said his mom, Joni Green, liked Rocky movies and once he watched one, he soon became engrossed in the rest of the series on the rise-and-fall of the journeyman heavyweight from Philadelphia.
“I showed him the first Rocky movie when he was maybe 9 or 10 and he watched it over and over and over,” Joni once told me. “We got him the other Rocky movies after that and he must have watched each of them 10 times. He just fell in love with boxing.”
His dad, Bill Wildenhaus, brought boxing films home from the library and Sam scoured the internet for boxing facts and figures.
Soon he wanted to try the sport and though Bill and Joni were glad he found something that brought him out of his shell, they wondered how he would handle it.
He had had a rough childhood. Undetected fluid on his ears at birth caused hearing issues and affected his ability to speak. That led to some communication and socialization issues. And there were problems with his eyesight that required corrective surgery.
“When we heard about the Fight Night at Drake’s Gym in Dayton we thought. ‘OK, if Sam really thinks he wants to do this, we’ll go and get as close as we can to the ring,’” Bill once recounted to me.
“I wanted him to see the sweat and the blood and how hard those guys were hitting. I figured that would probably put an end to it right there.
“But halfway through it, he looked at it and said, ‘Dad, I want to do this! I really want to do this!’”
And let’s just say – even at 11 – he was a young man of his word.
Now, fast forward to Saturday night when Sam Wildenhaus – now 27; known as “Sammy the Bull” in the ring; a guy who had 53 amateur fights and whose pro record, mostly as a super middleweight, is 13-4 – fights the main event against bare knuckles and MMA fighter Vo Van, in another John Drake Fight Night production.
This one’s called Knockout 2025 and it’s become an annual charity event that in the past decade, Drake said, has raised $100,919 for various Miami Valley entities.
This year’s 16-bout exhibition card – which starts at 7 p.m. – will be at the newly-redone Dayton Convention Center.
A portion of the proceeds will go to the Muse Machine. Before the event, $20 tickets can be purchased at the gym (111 E. Fifth Street, Dayton) or online at (www.facebook.com/DrakesDowntownGym/). At the door, tickets are $25.
In the co-feature, Warren “The Destroyer” Roberds, a Xenia firefighter, will meet Kettering’s Nate Staniford in a heavyweight bout.
When it comes to athletes in the Miami Valley, few have put together a sporting career that is more unlikely, more accomplished and more admirable than Wildenhaus.
After watching that show as an 11-year-old, Sam enrolled in the Kids & Mitts program at Drake’s. He then began to train at the gym and started on his amateur career.
For a brief while, he worked out at another, now defunct gym in East Dayton and then began to train at the Yellow Springs home he shares with his parents.
He put a heavy bag and speed bag in the garage. Much of his other training work he does in early morning sessions at the Wellness Center at Antioch College in Yellow Springs. On Wednesday nights he returns to Drake’s for open sparring sessions. Other times he goes to Columbus or Cincinnati to spar.
Bill, who runs The Carpet Store in Centerville – Sam works there binding carpets – had served as his son’s trainer, manager and often his cornerman at fights. Health issues though have limited his mobility and left him in need of a wheelchair.
Joni now often takes his place and works Sam’s corner. She’s been with him in bouts in West Virginia and Kentucky and was in Racine, Wisconsin this past June when he was stopped in four rounds by hometown favorite William Langston from nearby Kenosha.
As these bouts, you notice, have one thing in common.
They’ve all been on the road. Eleven of Sam’s fights have been in West Virginia. Others have been in Kentucky and Pennsylvania Only two have been in Ohio: Youngtown and Columbus.
That’s why Saturday night’s show is special for him.
Few people in the Miami Valley have ever seen him fight live once he turned pro. And few have even heard of his exploits.
He’s a man of few words and little self-promotion, especially when it comes to talking about his fistic triumphs.
“I fight because I love the sport,” he said when we talked Monday morning at Drake’s Gym.
“I like the training and the routine, but I’m not in it for the fame. For me, it’s about having the respect of the other boxers in the gym.”
‘It’s not fake’
Once he got into the sport, Sam was able to see the difference between the cinematic exaggerations of the Rocky movies and the blood and sweat reality of the ring that he was learning, feeling, and meting out himself.
“Real boxing is a lot funner,” he said. “It’s more fun to actually do it, and watch it. It’s not fake.”
John Drake remembers Sam’s first forays into the fight club:
“When Sam first came in here, he was just a wide-eyed kid full of wonderment. He ended up finding a home and a passion. He looked up to the older guys in the gym and picked up on everything he could.”
After he had done the Kids & Mitts program for two years, he wanted to spar, and that, he said, led to one of his best birthday presents ever.
On the day he turned 13 – a Saturday – he got up in the morning, and his gym bag was packed and waiting for him, along with a note his dad had written. It told him to take along his mouthpiece and hand wraps. They were going to the gym – to spar.
Although he won a lot more fights as an amateur than he lost, he said he was told his aggressive, bull-ahead style was not conducive to building up the points needed to win amateur boxing matches.
He said he developed his style kind out of necessity:
“I don’t have the best reflexes, and I don’t have long arms. I’m always the shorter guy so I’ve got to come forward and press.”
He got the nickname Sammy the Bull from legendary Cincinnati trainer Mike Stafford Sr. and his boxing son, Mike Jr.
As a pro, his style has produced some dramatic victories, including his knockout of Alejandro Fugon in June of 2024 in Saint Albans, West Virginia.
Three times in his career – including in the very first round of his first pro fight – he’s suffered cuts in the ring. Each time he has won, including another rugged bout in Saint Albans with Russian Viltalii Gubkin.
“The thing I remember most there was going to the hospital,” Sam said. “It was a busy night and I sat there from about 11 pm until 5 or 6 am when they could stitch me up.”
After that he drove back to Greene County with a lot of stitches in his eyebrow and not much money in his pocket.
‘I really want to do this!’
Sam doesn’t make a big deal about any of this and that’s part of the reason other boxers in the gym like him. He’s not a grandstander or pretender.
I asked him about boxing idols he had over the years and although he is something of a savant and can tell you minuscule facts and minutia on almost any boxer you name, he didn’t want to mention anybody, saying, “some guys are really good, but they’re not good role models.”
And yet later he did mention one boxer with reverence: Tom “Ruff House” Fischer, the blue-collar Dayton heavyweight of some fame in the 1970s and 1980s.
Fischer fought guys who became champions – he met Leon Spinks in Detroit and Michael Dokes in Las Vegas – and he went against top contenders like Quick Tillis in Chicago; Ron Stander in Cincinnati; Jimmy Young in Vegas; Bennie Knoetze in South Africa; and Marvis Frazier in New Jersey.
Wildenhaus and Fischer have a few things in common. Neither was very tall; both had an aggressive, bullish style; and both fought in other guys’ back yards,
Fischer may be unknown by many on the national scene now, but he’s still respected by the boxing community here.
“That’s what I mean,” Sam said. “I think it’s more important to be respected by guys in the gym – guys who know the sport and know you – than just to go after the fame of the big stage. The people there don’t know you."
Saturday night there’ll finally be people who are familiar with him and he’s looking forward to it.
“What’s weird is the only time I’m nervous is when I’m in the locker room,” he said.
When he steps through the ring ropes, he transforms into Sammy the Bull.
“Once I’m in the ring, I just want to get it going,” he said as he snapped his fingers three times. “I’m standing there in my corner. I’m amped up and it’s just:
“‘Bell!…Bell!…Bell!”
“Ring!…Ring!…Ring!”
And then it all comes back to that promise he made as a wide-eyed 11-year-old:
“I really want to do this!”
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