FROM WESTSIDE ATLANTA TO PRO BOXING: THE QUINTERIUS "MADEMAN" CHAPPELL STORY

ATLANTA — Quinterius "MadeMan" Chappell knows how he comes across. "A killer. A killer. A natural-born, stone-cold killer," he says, and for a second you believe him. Then he smiles. "Some people look at me and say, you look mean," he explains. "I prefer to be chill. I prefer to be cool."

That contrast runs through everything about the 32-year-old Atlanta boxer, the subject of a new TUS TV documentary. He is calm outside the ring and relentless in it, and he is clear about what he is chasing. "I want the name Quinterius Chappell to mean greatness," he says.

The West Side

Chappell grew up on the west side of Atlanta, at the Ridge Apartments, a place he describes without dressing it up. Boxing, he says, was what helped change his life. He was honest about why he needed it: "I have a temper. I used to be angry all the time," he says. He wanted something to challenge that anger without ending up in jail.

He found it by accident. He walked into a boxing gym one day with one of his best friends, and, in his words, he has been stuck ever since.

His Grandfather

The chain around Chappell's neck is not jewelry for show. It carries his grandfather. "His presence is everything to me," he says, "so that's why I wear him around my neck."

He lost his grandfather to cancer, and fast: within 30 days. In the middle of that grief, his coach, Coach Tony, stepped into the space his grandfather left. Chappell says the coach reminded him of his grandfather, and it was that coach who told him he could turn pro.

The Loss

Chappell's first professional loss came in Orlando in February 2024, against undefeated Jorge Carlos at Most Valuable Prospects V. He took the fight on two weeks' notice, and he admits he went in underprepared. He had watched his opponent maybe two or three times. Across the ring stood a 6-foot-1 fighter, and Chappell had not worked on closing distance against someone that tall. By the end, he says, his goal had become survival.

He does not hide from it. "That fight taught me how deep I can go," he says: the skills and the ring IQ to survive the storm, and it was only his fourth pro fight. Asked what he would tell himself before that night, he keeps it simple: don't think as much, treat it like a sparring session, take more risks, "go for broke."

The road after Orlando was not smooth either. A later fight in Tennessee was called a draw, a reminder, he says, that when the odds are against you, you cannot let up.

The Rebuild

What changed most was him. "Back then I was less teachable," Chappell says. "For the most part, I'm teachable now. I got a great team."

That team asks a lot. "My coach demands from me discipline," he says, and outworking whoever is in front of him. The hardest part of camp, he says, is the daily grind of doing the basics right, over and over: you get up, you put the work in, and that is just what it is.

He is fighting for more than himself. "Every kid don't have a father," he says, "so for those kids that don't have a father, I'm fighting for you too."

Coming Home

On October 4, Chappell fought in his hometown again, at Morehouse College, and the setting was not lost on him. "It feels like it's my first day of college," he says.

He saw the night as bigger than one result: a chance to bring people together under one roof. And he wanted to send a message, at 32, "meaner than I ever been," that he is one of the best out of the South.

For all the talk of killers and meanness, Chappell ends somewhere quieter. "I'm not perfect," he says. "I'm just a man that want the best for himself."

Watch the full documentary and the replay of his October 4 fight on TUS TV.

Full Documentary: https://www.theundisputedsouth.com/watch/from-westside-atlanta-to-pro-boxing-the-quinterius-mademan-chappell-story

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Photos: Malachi McElroy for The Undisputed South TV