THE BREADWINNER: When he's not in the ring Joltin' Joey's raising his two boys and making deliveries for Amoroso's.

The problem for DeMalavez was there weren't any more rounds on this night. In a bout that featured two cautious fighters—who at times appeared afraid to trade—DeMalavez was on the losing end of a majority decision.

When the emcee declared Brown the winner, DeMalavez shuffled his feet and popped off a couple of quick jabs into the air. He wasn't happy. And for good reason. At 39, an age when most men are going into decline in their recliners, DeMalavez is in the best shape of his life. At an age when most people are beginning to taste the fruit of their lifelong dreams, DeMalavez, a middleweight from Manayunk, is just beginning to chase his.

DeMalavez—known as "Joltin' Joey" in the ring—began his career as a professional boxer less than two years ago with the ambition of winning a middleweight title. His record, with the loss to Brown on Feb. 10, stands at 5-2 (3 KOs). For most pugs pushing 40, every loss carries a significant cost. In the cutthroat boxing world, where cold-blooded promoters vet talent with icy calculation, even a single loss tarnishes a boxer's image, making it more difficult to bag big-money fights.

In the end, every boxer wants a shot at a title, but many will settle for the big payday that comes with a pay-per-view bout in Las Vegas or Madison Square Garden. A match on the undercard in Vegas can typically catch $30,000 to $50,000. And the purse for the feature event can be worth hundreds of thousands or even millions. The most realistic option for DeMalavez at this point would be a televised fight in Atlantic City. In the wake of his recent defeat, he is more determined than ever in his Balboa-like quest.

He says that if he can win his next five fights, he could be in line for a shot at the Pennsylvania state title or a North American Boxing Federation championship bout.

DeMalavez's dream of becoming a pro fighter is one he's held since he was a pudgy 11-year-old shadowboxer on the sidewalks of Tower Street in Manayunk back in the 1970s. He was starting to think about girls. He thought he was overweight and decided to begin working out in the gym at the North Light Community Center on Green Lane in Manayunk. There, he caught the eye of a trainer, Joe Mathis.

Mathis brought DeMalavez to train with Steve Traitz, who was boss of the roofers union and ran the Montgomery County Boys Club, a boxing institution. DeMalavez flourished as a fighter under Traitz's stewardship. He logged 20 amateur bouts by the time he was 17.

"Mr. Traitz was thinking of sending me to tournaments across the country," he says. "He was thinking about possibly getting me to the Olympics in 1984."

In the 1980s, Traitz, who also did jobs for the Atlantic City Scarfo crew, ran into legal trouble. He went down on federal RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act) charges and was sentenced to prison. Without Traitz's guidance, and feeling disenchanted, DeMalavez drifted from organized boxing. That drift lasted 17 years.

"I still ran and worked out in my basement during those years," he says, "but I didn't do any organized boxing. I got married, had kids, had too many obligations.

"Now, I don't have a wife or a girlfriend," says the divorced bachelor. "You gotta stay away from the girls when you're training. You've got to have your leg strength. There's a lot on my plate, but I'm at a point now where I can manage it. Plus, I'm not getting any younger, so now's the time to go for it."

DeMalavez's boxing ambitions still take a backseat to delivering rolls for Amoroso's Baking Company and for his two boys. Up until March 20, he was also caring for his mother, who finally lost a long bout with cancer. On top of it all, he finds time to run three miles a day and train for two hours at a gym inside the Police Athletic League (PAL) in Phoenixville.

On average, DeMalavez gets two to four hours of sleep a day. He rises at around 11 p.m., has a bite to eat and then shoots off to his delivery truck in West Philly. After picking up his shipment, he plugs away at his route, which could take him through Philadelphia and its suburbs, or south through Delaware.

He cuts off work at around 9 a.m., laces up his running shoes and takes off for a three-mile trek through the hills of Manayunk. If he's lucky, he can get a few hours sleep at his mother's house (where he lives) before he has to cart his sons around Montgomery County. At 4:30 p.m., he's off to Phoenixville for his daily boxing regimen. After beating the bags, jumping rope, working with trainers and wending his way through the 'burbs back to Manayunk, he can usually catch a nap for an hour or so before he jumps into his white Corvette and takes off again for his delivery truck at Amoroso's warehouse.

Out at the gym on Feb. 23, DeMalavez, sporting his trademark shaved head and a Teamster's Local 463 T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, was back at it, working out with his trainer, John Mulvenna. DeMalavez, who is 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds, has the frame of a soundly conditioned middleweight. His arms and torso are lean and chiseled. As he rattles the speed bag in a corner of the gym, his arms display the balance and fluidity of a machine.

DeMalavez has his sights set on a rematch with Brown outdoors at the Sovereign Center in Reading on May 12. "A lot of promoters called my trainer after the fight and said that I should have got the decision," DeMalavez says. "I was upset for like three days after the fight, but I know I can take this guy, and I can't wait to get back into the ring with him."

Mulvenna, who speaks with a quiet intensity on the topic of boxing, says that DeMalavez has a chance to become a serious contender, but he first needs to learn the mechanics of the sport. "Joey's got guts, he's got the physical ability, but he needs to develop the mental side, learn the defense," he says.

Before turning pro, DeMalavez took the hard road as a club fighter, cutting his teeth in Tough Man tournaments across the city when he returned to the sport in his mid-30s.

"One day I was reading the paper and saw this ad that asked, 'Are you the toughest man in Philly?'" he says. "It got me thinking about boxing again. It drew me back to the ring."

These tournaments pitted local toughs—from cops to garbagemen, and sometimes schoolteachers—in a series of three, one-round bouts in which the last man standing was crowned the "toughest man."

Tough Man matches (outlawed in 1992) almost always featured fighters who stood in the middle of the ring whaling away at each other until one of them was knocked unconscious. Finesse was out of the question. "You had to get in there and fight like a maniac because the other guy was trying to kill you," DeMalavez says.

He won two out of three Tough Man titles, but developed bad habits. Mulvenna says that DeMalavez grew into a "barroom brawler" instead of a prizefighter during his run in the clubs.

"To win as a professional, you have to be as smart as you are physically talented," Mulvenna says.

Mulvenna has taken on the task of turning a brawler into the kind of boxer who fights in the feature event on fight night. He is trying to mold DeMalavez into a contender.

As DeMalavez unloads combination after combination into a punching bag, his feet are moving, he's slipping from side to side. He works his way around the bag. According to Mulvenna, since DeMalavez joined his boxing stable at PAL, he is evolving toward the finesse fighter he needs to be.

"DeMalavez is coming along," Mulvenna says. "He has a lot of desire. With his determination, he could win one of those [middleweight] titles. He's learning at a quick clip."

The gym in Phoenixville is a cramped room filled with humming fluorescent lights, worn punching bags and walls covered with yellowing newspaper clippings detailing the exploits of local fighters past and present. It is the sort of nondescript place where dreams are born.

More than anything else, DeMalavez is chasing down that moment of glory that comes with winning a pro title, standing under the hot lights of center ring with a glittering belt around his waist. The clock is ticking. He admits that he probably has only a few years left to get there. But he believes he can find his way to that moment.

"I've been doing this game since I was real young," he says . "Of course I want the payday, but I really think that I can contend for some type of title."