WOODRIDGE – One of the quintessential qualities of a championship-caliber boxer is the ability to get back up after being decked.

Giovanni Mioletti has it.

“One of my guys put him down with a punch in the first round,” said John Nocita, Mioletti’s trainer and the head coach at the Leyden Boxing Club in Franklin Park. “I said, ‘Get him out of here,’ but he kept showing up and kept asking me to work with him. I told him, ‘OK, I’ll give you a shot, but you have to do it my way.’ And he’s been in 100 percent.”

Mioletti, a Woodridge resident who graduated from Downers Grove South, has the ability and desire to get back up, but he possesses so much more to make him a promising young professional fighter. He sports a 6-0 record and will look to add to the win column when he fights William Hernandez (3-0) at Windy City Fight Night on April 28 at the UIC Pavilion in Chicago.

Being able to take a punch and being able to get back up from a big hit are nice qualities to have, but Mioletti has a drive and passion to be the best.

When the 22-year-old decided he wanted to become a boxer – he was a sophomore in high school – he didn’t let anything stand in his way. He trained at Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles, the training home for renowned boxers Julio Cesar Chavez, Miguel Cotto, and his personal favorite Manny Pacquiao.

He also trained for a time in Mexico before deciding to come back home, where he hooked up with Nocita and Leyden Boxing.

“I came back to Chicago and a guy my dad worked with said, ‘If your son is serious about turning pro, he should go to this gym,’ because John has been known to bring ’em up good,” Mioletti said. “At first it felt just like any other gym, but once John started to deconstruct me a little bit, I realized how little I knew.”

To look at him, one wouldn’t know Mioletti is a promising young fighter. He’s not physically imposing. He doesn’t have the scowl that casual boxing fans may associate with a tough fighter. It’s not what’s on the outside but what’s on the inside that makes Mioletti the fighter he is.

“Most guys aren’t as tough as they appear to be. Gio looks like a choir boy, an altar boy, and I’ve seen him beat some of the baddest, scariest looking guys around,” Nocita said. “Gio’s not afraid. He’ll walk in there with Mike Tyson tomorrow.

“It’s a natural thing he’s got. He’s real even-keeled, which is a good thing in boxing.”

With Nocita’s help, Mioletti has grown by leaps and bounds as a fighter. Quick on his feet with fast hands, sharp reflexes and a “good chin,” as Nocita said, Mioletti has the makeup of a fighter destined for big things.

In his most recent fight in March in Tacoma, Wash., he was hardly touched on his way to a win by decision. His second professional fight, also in Tacoma in June 2016, saw him take it to hometown foe Jeremy McCleary early as he earned a victory by decision.

Some of the best fighters the United States has produced see Mioletti’s potential, and said so to Nocita.

“Leo Randolph and Sugar Ray Seales, they said he was the best prospect they had seen in the last 20 years. That’s a heck of a comment from two really, really good boxers with impeccable credentials,” Nocita said of the Olympic gold medalists. “To hear that from them was really something.”

Being emotionally level is a strength of Mioletti’s, yet he admitted to being excited about fighting in front of his hometown fans at the UIC Pavilion. Still, he knows there’s work to be done if he wants to reach the same level as a fighter such as Pacquiao.

“I think I’ve come a long, long way. I think now I have the knowledge and the skills of a true professional, but I also recognize I’m at the beginning of that stage,” Mioletti said. “I thought I was ready to turn pro years ago, but when I came here I realized there was all this knowledge I didn’t have.

“Now I am a professional, but just at the beginning. There’s so much more work to be done.”

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If you go

Who: Gio Mioletti vs. William Hernandez

What: Windy City Fight Night

When: 8 p.m. April 28

Where: UIC Pavilion, 525 S. Racine Ave., Chicago

More info: Tickets available at ticket master.com or by emailing Bernie DiMeo at bernie@berniedimeo.com