Boxing gym founders Horace and Gideon Uelese talk secrets to success, expansion plans

The founders of a popular Sydney boxing gym that has a social media following of more than 130,000 people have shared insights behind their success as they eye expansion plans to a new Sydney suburb. Read the full story.

Horace and Gideon Uelese with their mother Maria.

From illegal immigrants in New Zealand to opening up their very own boxing gym in the heart of Rosebery, Samoan brothers Horace and Gideon Uelese are making a name for themselves.

After entering the world of social media during the pandemic, the brothers had a relatively slow start in attracting clients, but after “about four months” of hard work, their Instagram page ‘Pad Flow’ grew rapidly.

So much so, the page now sits at 132,000 followers.

“I actually learned how to shoot videos and how to edit in lockdown,” Gideon said.

“We understood that if we were to bring in clients … we knew people would be on their phones, so we needed to learn how to run a social media page.

“We had no intention of trying to blow up internationally or anything.”

But that’s exactly what happened with the brothers being followed by American actors Jamie Foxx, and Stranger Things star David Harbour to music artists Chance the Rapper and LL Cool J.

Back home in Australia, they’ve also gained a following with the likes of UFC heavyweight Tai Tuivasa, boxing world title challenger Jason Maloney and NRL superstars Payne Haas and Junior Paulo.

It has also seen professional boxers Paulo Aokuso and Danilo Creati regularly stop in to work with Horace on the pads.

And while the recognition is a “surreal” feeling, the brothers remain focused on carrying out the gym’s ethos of serving “everyday people”.

“We‘re not here to try and create the next world champion, our whole MO is we’re here to try and help everyday people through our craft and our passion, which is boxing,” Gideon said.

“One thing that we hang our hats on is we‘ve built this sort of reputation around introducing [those] people to boxing, and just making a safe space for them to come and learn.

“But when you start seeing your product and what you do touching Hollywood, and these people with heavy influence around the world, that’s crazy to us.

“At the end of the day we always see ourselves as the two brothers from the dog park.”

Horace and Gideon Uelese at Rosebery dog park.

And that is where it all started.

Having moved to Australia from New Zealand five years ago, Gideon was later joined by Horace who was only in the country as a stop over before heading home.

After he was offered a personal training job, he decided to stay, sleeping on Gideon’s couch, and when Covid hit, the brothers were looking for a new way to make money, given they weren’t eligible for government funding.

“It was hard because we financially support our parents back home,” Gideon said.

“So for us, we still needed to bring in funds, and that’s why we decided to just go down to the local dog park.

“On Horace’s way out of [his job] he stole a pair of pads. I was making money under the table with scaffolding but as soon as lockdown hit … that was it, we couldn’t get any sort of funding.”

From there, the brothers took matters into their own hands, taking clients to the “infamous dog park”, although that was short lived.

Horace Uelese training a client at the dog park.

“Everyone always comes in and asks about it,” Gideon said.

“So when we started over at the dog park, our deal was that we were going to hit pads and then people would come flocking in by the hundreds.

“That‘s not what happened … we ended up getting kicked out from the dog park because of noise complaints … and then we went to another dog park and got kicked out of there on the second day.”

After a few failed attempts of moving to Bondi and trying to attract influencers, it was the videos posted to Instagram which grabbed people’s attention.

Horace (white shirt) and Gideon Uelese making content with a client at the dog park.

“What really pushed us was when we started recording our flows, and that’s what we’re known for – is our crazy mit work and crazy pad flows,” Gideon said.

“Horace is a gun on the pads, so we started creating our own brand of pad work, and then on the social media side, we needed a unique way of telling the story.

“I think with our style of recording and the product itself, it started growing organically, and people started sharing stuff, and we had a lot of people tagging their friends, saying ‘check these guys out’ and it was even controversial.”

Like most good things, negativity follows, and Gideon shed light on the backlash from many in the “boxing world”.

“We had [people saying] this stuff doesn’t work, these guys are just PTs that like to do random stuff that’s got no functionality behind it,” he said.

“But in doing so, what we didn’t realise is that we actually started pushing our name out there even more.”

With the continued success, the brothers made the bold decision last month to open up Pad Flow Gym in Rosebery.

“It’s been awesome, the best thing is a lot of our members that have come to sign up, these are guys that have been following us for a long time,” Gideon said.

“A lot of them when they come in, they’re kind of starstruck in a way … [then they] just realise that we’re just your normal dudes.

“What you see is what you get. And for us, that’s been an easy way to bring people in, and especially locally around Rosebery, it’s more of a corporate area, a lot of them are looking for an outlet, they’re looking to learn or come and let off some stress.”

The gym’s opening was an emotional one, a full circle moment when unveiling the new space to their parents.

Gideon, Fenike, Maria and Horace Uelese at their newly opened Pad Flow Gym in Rosebery.

“To have our mum and dad come in when we had our open day … we surprised our parents, we bought them tickets, we flew them over,” Gideon said.

“For them to walk through those doors, because Samoan parents they don’t really go on social media, so when we told them we were opening up a gym, they thought that we just had a couple of boxing bags in a garage somewhere.

“So for them when they came to walk through those doors, it was extremely emotional. For us it was a full circle moment to finally give something back to them … what they deserve. It was a heartfelt moment. It was like [their] sacrifice went to something.

“We always say this gym is theirs, everything here is all credited to our parents.”

Horace and Gideon Uelese with their parents in their junior years.

With a huge 2023 ahead, the brothers are now focused on growing their clientele, but if all goes well, they will be looking to open up a second gym.

“We’re tossing between out west, or we’re gonna go to the heart of the city,” Gideon said.

“Although we’re kind of leaning towards out west right now because … we really want to buy our own place and run our HQ from there.

“A lot of our following comes from out west, and I feel like it’s just a growing place … it just makes sense for us.

“We try to go [there] every week … we want to use our craft to touch those communities and give back in a way … and to expose a lot of talent out there.”