Boxing is in business major Brandon Diaz’s blood. The Lowell native was introduced to the sport as a youngster by his grandfather, who boxed professionally. When an 18-year-old Mike Tyson turned pro in 1985, Diaz’s uncle, Hector Mercedes, was his first opponent.
“Boxing is like a chess match,” says Diaz, who took up the sport at age 14, training with Joseph Ramalho at Lowell’s legendary West End Gym. “There are so many different moves you can make, and there are so many different countermoves that you have to calculate.”
By age 16, Diaz was learning the business side of the sport, helping Ramalho put on the annual New England Golden Gloves boxing tournament at Lowell Memorial Auditorium.
“I would carry super-heavy metal beams from the truck and help build the ring,” Diaz says. “Getting free access to the Golden Gloves was like a dream.”
Around the same time, Diaz began teaching the sport to local youth through the Lowell Police Department’s boxing program.
“That’s when I realized I love coaching,” he says. “Seeing the kids grow and build their skills gives me the same kind of adrenaline rush as boxing itself.”
After earning an associate degree from Middlesex Community College, Diaz transferred to UMass Lowell to study finance as a first-generation college student.
When he saw that a boxing club didn’t exist on campus, Diaz decided to create one. He began by offering free nightly lessons at the Campus Recreation Center. Soon, dozens of students were shadow-boxing and doing conditioning drills in the yoga room and on the racquetball courts. When the fledgling club outgrew those spaces, it moved to a gym in Tewksbury.
As participation grew, Diaz ran into a challenge that would spark a much bigger idea.
“There were times I had 40 students in a room,” he says. “I couldn’t fix everyone’s form at the same time.”
That led him to build FormMatch AI, an athlete-performance app that uses a phone’s camera to provide real-time form feedback and technique corrections.
Through the Rist DifferenceMaker program, he assembled a team of engineers and developers and began building an early prototype. In the Manning School of Business’ inaugural AI Entrepreneurship Competition, FormMatch took third place and $400. A few weeks later, it finished second in the Francis College of Engineering Prototyping Competition, earning $1,500.
“DifferenceMaker teaches you to be more open-minded, that anything is possible as long as you put in the work,” says Diaz, who plans to launch FormMatch pilot programs with local gyms and begin sales after graduating.
While he is focused on building the business, Diaz also plans to return to the ring as a fighter someday.
“I’ll have to use the FormMatch AI to train for the Golden Gloves, just to show it works,” he says.
Diaz has already found himself back at the Golden Gloves. In the spring semester of his senior year, he landed a marketing internship with Spectacle Live, the event management company that runs the tournament.
“Sometimes I can't believe how much I’ve been able to accomplish in just two years at UMass Lowell,” Diaz says. “But I have a great support system, a great family, that helps to keep me focused on my goals.”