Can You Hear Me Now?
Julian Smith, a legally deaf boxer, has defied the odds. Will boxing heed his call?
The phone rings at night but he sleeps through the commotion. His mother received the call no parent wants. She rushes out the door, leaving young Julian alone. Brandon, the oldest brother and Natalie’s first born, became another senseless statistic in this country’s indifference to the number one driver of slayings: gun violence.
Julian Smith never had it easy. “It was a stressful pregnancy” Natalie Bibbs would say. At a young age the strain of being an outcast plagued him. He would suffer from ADHD, in dire need of an outlet as much as acceptance. The bullying was constant.
“People really didn’t get a chance to know Julian as a person,” Natalie told me. “He was just a deaf kid.”
One afternoon, Natalie says she pushed her youngest son to go outside. “As dusk was approaching he wasn’t home. I called around, went looking for him, and just couldn't find him.” As the panic set in, she’d head out again calling for her son. She turned down one street in the neighborhood. Then another. The commotion would grow louder. She followed her instincts. “There’s a crowd of kids standing around and the closer I got to the crowd, the kids were yelling, fighting, kicking! Julian was on the ground in a fetal position. I picked him up to see if he was ok and he said he was.”
According to the National Library of Medicine, “deaf and hard of hearing students experience bullying at rates 2-3 times higher than those reported by hearing students.” He too was another number.
Julian was roughly ten years old at the time. Brandon about sixteen. Older brother, serving in that role, concocted revenge. Natalie ixnayed the idea.
Filled with rage but obeying a mother’s wishes, another lightbulb went off in Brandon’s head: boxing gloves.
The bros became combatants on a backyard battlefield. “[Julian] would get hit by his brother but he had to learn to defend himself,” Natalie said. “He’d hit Julian down and told him to get up. Brandon told him, ‘you fight until you can’t fight anymore.’ Every day they’d get out there and they’d fight until he stood up and started fighting back.”
The training sessions turned into cinema. Julian improved. And when he went away his senior year to Illinois School For The Death, the return home was even sweeter. Baby bro could pack a punch. Brandon was stunned.
Julian’s education was another hurdle. Starting in kindergarten, he bounced around from one institution to the next. Bus rides ran almost an hour. Residing in Robbins, Illinois, Julian went from Tinley Park, to Orland, Berwyn, and Burbank (to name a few). “It was really hard making friends growing up” he’d say.
Natalie, a single parent at times before rekindling a relationship with her high school sweetheart, saw her youngest son run around the kitchen table. She’d even pass the time by spraying shaving cream and asking Julian to write his name. His ADHD would get progressively worse. Choosing not to medicate, Natalie would say “I had to do something.”
At Glen Hudson’s Muay Thai, Julian excelled. “There was one month where he started winning tournament after tournament,” says Natalie. “This helped with him learning the sport and channeling that energy. That built-up anxiety he had was a release for him. It tired him out, and he calmed down.” Not only success in the sport, but a better mood back home.
From kickboxing came football. Unable to hear, his teammates conceived a strategy: “kids would tap him on the back and touch him on the thigh to let him know the ball was snapped” sh says. Though growing pains were aplenty.
As a running back playing pee wee, Julian recalled a story. After receiving a handoff, Julian ran in the opposite direction. This was no comedic film to his coaches. Julian profusely apologized to no avail. “CAN YOU HEAR ME?!” his coach yelled. It was another lonely moment of many.
Julian didn’t find boxing, boxing found him. On that fateful day after his eighth grade classes concluded, the gloves showed up under Brandon’s direction. “I was just taking an asskicking,” Julian said. “I was in shock and afraid of my brother the whole time. But the more I practiced the better I got.” Their bond was never in doubt.
On November 17th, 2012, their lives changed forever.
“So what happened?” I asked.
Thanksgiving break, no matter what point in life a person is at, is a time for family. We come together, we celebrate, we feast, and we share more memories. It’s what makes us human. This holiday would take on a new, calamitous meaning.
The call came at 2:00am. “I got straight to the hospital, which was Christ Hospital in Evergreen Park” she tells me. The story, per Natalie, goes as follows: Brandon was at a party one night when a squirmish broke out. One thing led to another. Her son would be shot. At twenty-nine years of age, Brandon was gone.
“It was tragic. It was unexpected. It was horrific,” she said. “Mothers should never have to bury their kids.”
After learning the news, Julian was a shell of himself.
“He was so heartbroken. He was devastated. He was going to Rochester Institute Technology For The Deaf in New York. He wasn’t able to go back to school so he left and enrolled in community college” Natalie recalled.
The grief became traumatic. The trauma made it hard to focus. Julian, like his brother, wanted revenge but he couldn’t pinpoint who it was because there were so many subjects involved.
Natalie outlines a town that was (and remains) ill-equipped to deal with such a case. She claimed the crime scene was tampered with and no investigators were on-site. Court came and went for roughly three years.
Then a new revelation: “one person finally came forward saying Brandon shot first and he shot back in self-defense.” The proof was never discovered. It remains a mystery to the family to this day.
Through it all one motivator remained a mainstay: boxing.
“Because his brother had died, he wanted to start doing it more,” says his mother. Her husband's cousin was a former pro boxer named Phillip Scott, who helped along the way. Pierre Scott, a family relative, invited Julian to the gym. One thing led to another. He signed up for USA Boxing.
Julian took his licks too though Natalie quipped, “he has a high tolerance for pain.”
The amateurs became his minor leagues, navigating life not solely as a deaf boxer, but a camaraderie in need between coach and pupil. The infancy stages served as trial and error strategy sessions: color-coded towels indicated what Julian must do. The only thing he can hear? The 10 second clapper, not necessarily from the clicking, but the vibration. The challenge, Julian tells me, was never taking his eye off the opponent.
Clearly it was a message that rang true. He’d win the Golden Gloves three times. Turning pro was his next step. He compiled nine wins and two losses, knocking out five opponents. His first eye-opener to boxing fans came against undefeated boxer Orestes Velazquez. After four knockdowns, Velazquez’s corner threw in the towel in the ninth round.
On the evening of July 27th, 2024, the world knew Julain Smith’s name. Fighting on the undercard of the G.W.O.A.T. Claressa Shields, Smith took on Shohjahon Ergashev, a proud boxer from Uzbekistan who packs a punch (21 KO in 24 wins), Smith floored Ergashev in the fifth and went on to pull off a massive upset with two judges scoring it 95-94 in favor of “The Quiet Storm.” The card aired on streaming platform DAZN.
Up next? “I want to be the first Black deaf boxing champion of the world.”
No matter the glory, Julian dedicates every match to his late brother. “I remember his words, telling me no matter who stands in front of me, fight until I can’t fight no more. Not just boxing but bullying, mistreatment, any struggle you may have in life.” His trunks serve that reminder with “BRANDON” spelled out for all to see.
Julian Smith is here to be heard.