Professional boxing returns to Trenton later this month with the inaugural Champbox Series at Cure Insurance Arena.

“It's exciting,” says Mike Moore, cruiserweight from Levittown, Pennsylvania. “I'm excited to be a part of it and I'm going to put on a good show.”

Cure Insurance Arena is hosting Champbox 1, a championship series for local amateur and professional boxers.

For fighters such as Shinard Bunch, it's a chance to show local youth the positive impact the sport can have.

“Being a positive role model, for the youth, my children, staying positive and that's it, I want to give everybody, the kids, something to come back to,” says Bunch, a Trenton resident.

Newark native Quaseem Carter agrees, he says local boxing has fallen off for the wrong reasons.

“Jersey is a little slacking off but we're trying to come back to life in boxing but it's just hard for us to stay on the right track around here you know boxing keeps you focused on a lot of different things, not just boxing,” says Carter.

Champbox 1’s headliner, Mike Hilton, is proof of what the sport can do. The Trenton native was on the wrong path when he was younger.

“I was involved in gang and gang violence, I had been stabbed, I had some felonies,” says Hilton.

Through church, the cruiserweight found boxing 12 years ago and went on to become a Golden Gloves and USA Boxing National Champion, before turning pro in 2015.

He now has the opportunity to put his undefeated record on the line in front of a home crowd.

“Just to see me switch my life around and go from negative to positive and to keep doing it for so long is just a blessing,” says Hilton. “It's a blessing for me, my family, my city just to show everybody that what you've been through in life and what you've done that you can still turn around and make a change.

Champbox 1 is Jan. 25 at the Cure Insurance Arena.