Wall Street's Raging Bull

In March, seeking a tougher workout than he could get at his old gym, Joseph Guccione walked into the Church Street Boxing Gym, a severe-looking, subterranean establishment in the heart of Manhattan’s Financial District. The 29-year-old wealth-management associate at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney stood waiting at the front desk when a man appeared with a challenge: “Quote me an Ol’ Dirty Bastard song or I’m going to knock you the f- -k out.” Guccione had just met Eric Kelly, a once promising boxer who is now the gym’s most notorious trainer. “I didn’t even have my membership yet, and I’m already being attacked by this guy,” Guccione laughs. “I couldn’t name him a song because [hip-hop] is not really my genre. But I also kind of wanted to see what he’d say if I didn’t.” Kelly didn’t follow through on the threat. He had just secured a new client.

At banks like Guccione’s, there are plenty of reasons these days to clench one’s fists. “We went through hell the last couple of years,” he says. “And [there are] the regulations and everything you hear about down in Washington. When you’re working here, your enemy is the market in general, and all of the stress that goes along with it. You can’t really fight back. When you go to the boxing club, Eric can become that enemy. You can actually fight back.”