Sweat drips down his face as sophomore Cypher Andres throws his signature jab. He has put in tireless effort into perfecting his sharp moves and working towards being on the level of strong fighters.

Andres’s boxing career started unconventionally.

“I tried the whole basketball thing. I didn’t really find any joy as much as I did with martial arts,” Andres said.“So I took a break from doing anything at all. Then, I was watching this anime called ‘Hajime no Ippo.’ It’s basically a boxing anime. I was like, ‘That looks really cool, I want to do that.’ So that’s how I got here, and I can confirm it has been really fun.”

Since then, Andres has grown up doing various types of martial arts, including Taekwondo, Muay Thai, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Krav Maja. However, he has found that out of all these styles, he likes boxing the most.

“What makes boxing so special is the fact that there are a lot of different styles that you can use,” Andres said. “It’s really cool to see how all those come together and the different types of fights you can have. When I did Taekwondo, it was really weird because Taekwondo is [about] being fast and having these trick kicks that you can’t really block. Then it was mostly dodging. But in boxing, you can have [a specialty] that you really excel at. I think that’s really interesting. It’s fun to fight against, too.”

Andres boxed at Syndicate MMA from December 2024 through July 2025, but had to stop due to the shutdown of their boxing program following the departure of their coach. However, he plans to join another club sometime in the near future.

“It has been [hard to stop boxing] because now I’m back to just having nothing to do at home,” Andres said. “I feel like sometimes I can just be rotting away when I could be doing something. Between studying and doing school work, I’d much rather do boxing than that.”

Despite the hardships he has faced, Andres has still been able to better his life through boxing by improving mentally. He has learned that being humble is the best thing you can do to not only help yourself, but also the people around you.

“I think that when you walk into the world of fighting, you have to keep your head low no matter what,” Andres said. “Because if you have your head high, and then you get taken down, not only is that a big toll on you, it’s a big toll on the people around you, because you’ve told them you’re the best. But, [if] you get knocked out, [or] you get humiliated, that’s really hard to come back from.”

Throughout his boxing journey, Andres has been helped and motivated by his peers. The person who has helped him the most through his journey is his friend and sparring partner, Orion Sillup.

“When I went to Syndicate for the first month, I didn’t really know anyone there,” Andres said. “Then, a friend from my old school came in, and we boxed together, [which] was really fun. We had a really cool dynamic with our sparring. As a sparring partner, I was a little bit ahead, and then one day he knocked me [down]. He’s really pushed me to go further and really focus. It’s a really fun dynamic that we have, and I’m really grateful for it.”

After almost a year of boxing, Andres hopes to continue boxing later in his life, even though he knows it is a competitive industry with minimal opportunities.

“I do wish to compete on a rookie professional level, in my 20s or college years,” Andres said. “But, as a full-time thing, I don’t know if I’m really interested in it, considering other opportunities I have. But I would definitely take it if I was offered the opportunity to go pro and be a champion because being a champion in boxing is one of the highest honors. [It is also] one of the greatest feelings…that just sounds like a really cool life.”

As Andres finds his way in the boxing world, he encourages others who have similar passions to follow in his steps.

“If you’re in a different martial art, and you want to go [into boxing], just go for it,” Andres said. “I think boxing has almost every essential element of every martial art. Even grappling, you at least know how to attack and defend in close quarters. So even stuff like that, it’s beautiful.”