Joshua Smart knows he should be dead by now.
Standing among the faded posters and peeling paint at the Elouera-Tony Mundine boxing gym in Redfern, his muscular body is pock-marked with scars from a machete knife attack, two bullets, a near-fatal prison bashing, a stabbing, a glassing and countless fights on the streets of inner Sydney.
But the softly spoken 25-year-old is now aiming to become one of the country's next boxing stars in a remarkable story of redemption and hope that reads like a movie script.
At 14, Smart was picked up by legendary boxing trainer Johnny Lewis after being spotted fighting three men on the street at Glebe.
He won five from five fights as a cocky teenager and was preparing to go pro when his life derailed as he spiralled into crime.
His first trip to jail was at 18, a three-year sentence for stabbing his uncle. Smart says he was protecting his dad by intervening in a violent fight between the two brothers.
He had only been out of jail for 10 months and was still on parole when his face was splashed across news bulletins in 2014 following a shooting in Pyrmont.
A man in a balaclava opened fire on Smart and his father, Michael, outside their home at 10.40pm on a Sunday night in April.
As Smart turned and ran for his life down Jones Street, his father threw himself between the gunman and his son and was shot in the head and leg.
Smart was hit twice in the back but barely realised it amid the adrenalin and shock.
"I slipped over and turned around and saw my dad on the ground, I just freaked and went straight over to him," he recalls.
"He had a big hole in his head, he was face down in blood, I thought he was dead. My mum and sister came out screaming, I was screaming, I was saying to my mum, 'he's dead, he's dead' and I just started crying.
"I had him in my arms and I was telling him to stay [with me] and... he started breathing and choking. Somehow he survived."
A court heard last year that Smart been locked in a volatile, "Romeo and Juliet" style romance with his girlfriend, Monique Farrell, that included frequent text messages from him threatening to kill her.
Ms Farrell's brother, George, was charged with the shooting and remains before a court. Ms Farrell is also before court on charges of concealing an indictable offence. Both are yet to enter pleas.
Smart refused to talk to the police and was convicted of concealing an indictable offence and making threats to kill. It landed him in prison for another 18 months.
"I was an idiot, I'm not proud of what I've done," he says. "I grew up surrounded by a lot of crime, my dad was in prison for a lot of my childhood and I guess I just got brought into that but I know I'm not that type of person. I don't want to be that person."
What kept him going in prison was boxing; always boxing.
He trained with toilet rolls and socks on his hands, he ate healthily and he cleared his mind.
At one stage, his fists may have saved his life when two prisoners attempted to extort him by locking him in a cell at Parklea and "Brevilling" him – a jailhouse term for bashing someone to within an inch of their life with a sandwich maker.
The day he got out on June 5, Smart caught up with his old friends and realised that, after five years, they were still consumed by drinking, partying, gambling and drugs.
He left them behind and walked straight into the Tony Mundine gym.
"It didn't surprise me at all when he came back," says renowned trainer Terry Lewis, who had taken on Smart midway through his successful run as a teenager.
"He's always wanted to be a boxer, always. That's what I think keeps him going, the hunger to be there, to be the best and go to the top which I think he's got the capability of doing."
This time, Smart says he feels different. He is quiet, focused, inspired and hungry. He is angry that he's wasted five of his best boxing years.
And he wants to do his best for his father, who requires full-time care from his daughter, and his new girlfriend, Terina Carr, who has helped him onto the right track and is his biggest supporter.
"I've realised that my life isn't over because of jail," he says. "I want to get straight and be a good role model for kids who haven't had a good upbringing. I want them to look at me and realise that, no matter what you've done, you can still be someone."
Smart has his first fight in early November and already has businessman Mark Bouris and boxer Jeff Fenech in his corner at Redfern.
A crumpled piece of paper stuck to the wall above the ring seems to say it all: "Suffering builds endurance. Endurance gives us hope. And hope does not desert us."
