They were the Fighting Capobiancos. Busted knuckles and showing up at school with black eyes from Golden Gloves warring and grumbling but doing 5:30 a.m. roadwork were part and parcel of their lives.

Huntington, Long Island knew Johnny, Phillie, Kevin and young Jerry as the offspring of John Sr., who won the New York Golden Gloves in 1949 and left behind a genomic disposition for engagement in ring therapy.

Johnny and Phil fought pro and Kevin and Jerry were on the same track but a car accident and a heart attack, respectively, reset their destinies.

Jerry had to look away from the sport. It stung too much to win the Gloves in 1982 and then see guys he’d beaten climb the ladder, get wins, money and acclaim.

“I didn’t look at boxing,” says the youngest Fighting Cap, who got dragged back to the sport when he was in a gym, hitting a bag to stay in shape, and saw a strong bull of a teen smash the heavy bag with purpose and power.

“Yeah, I had a pro contract, was making a few dollars, thought this is it. Then I had a heart attack, 28 beats a minute. It ended my boxing. 1983,” Jerry Cap said.

But it didn’t…because a kid who owned some of the same traits, of fire and pride and a willingness and need to scrap caught his eye.

The kid at Heavy Hitters Gym had a most basic name, Joe Smith Jr. (21-1, 17 knockouts), but uncommon pop in the fists.

Cap tapped “Tommy G,” Tommy Gallagher, to help in the corner, and they started the climb.

“And I think this kid is one of the hardest hitters in the light heavyweight division,” Cap says. “I believe he was born with it; he’s a natural athlete.” Finishing fourth among 10,000 entrants in one of those toughman endurance runs not long ago, after entering on a whim, helped Cap understand this.

But the power, the athleticism, others are blessed.

Maybe more so…

A test comes June 18. Another guy who can bang and is willing to put up with pain for a higher goal will be standing in front of 26-year-old Joe Smith, and seeking to end his joy ride.

On June 18, in Chicago, Smith faces an exam, a stern test of a caliber beyond anything with which he’s dealt. He fights Andzej Fonfara, a 28-3 (16 KOs) Pole who has met and defeated name opposition. Nathan Cleverly, he beat him, Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., the same. But he’s lost too, three times, so Cap isn’t thinking Smith is trying to yank the cape off a 28-year-old Superman.

“It’s two steps up,” the trainer, whose dad John, the first trainer for Huntington’s Gerry Cooney, told me.

“But Fonfara is the best we’ve fought. And the best in the division aside from (IBF/WBA/WBO titleholder) Sergey Kovalev and (WBC beltholder) Adonis Stevenson (who beat Fonfara by decision in May 2014). He throws 90 punches a round. It’s a huge step up.”

So how does Cap present the opportunity to Smith? Make like he’s a beast who is clearly of a superior grade? “I told him, if he loses, he has to go into his union job Monday. And if he wins, he doesn’t have to go. He does construction work, hard stuff. And he made a couple bucks, got a car, paid some bills off the Will Rosinsky fight. But I told him, one person is stopping you and that’s you. I know he’s the underdog but, in my heart, I don’t feel like he is.”

Cap is thinking hopefully the power speaks, so the judges don’t have to. Smith gets superior sparring with guys like Marcus Browne and Keith Tapia, so he knows Fonfara-level skills. Fonfara’s growth – he started out as a pro in 2006 as a welterweight – also concerns the trainer.

“He had a skinny neck and now it’s gigantic. But Joe is strong. He hits like a brick. He’s a natural light heavy, was since he was 17. And in every fight, Joe has been doing something spectacular. Against Rosinsky, nobody thought he had a jab. He hits very, very hard and often. It will be a small ring and, once we get going, the Fonfara jab goes away. And he will have a warrior mentality like Joe.” Message: There will be trading; action will be present to engage fans watching the Premier Boxing Champions production.

Cap has seen the sniping, like ESPN’s Dan Rafael Tweeting out his distaste for the main event. He said that he tries to keep such negativity from Joe but Joe doesn’t really get worked up over it anyway. The kid showed him his toughness early on, when his jaw was smashed off its hinges in a 2010 fight. He needed a seven-hour, $75,000 surgery to put it back together. The doc said he should have passed out in the ring from the pain. “He could have fought once more, got a win, left. But he wanted to keep going.”

Cap pauses, thinks of the hours and hours spent watching big bro John pound the bags, about how his is a fighting family, about how he works to try to help Smith elevate himself in life to a stable and then prosperous place. “For me, I think my father (who passed away in 2011) is looking down. How we got this fight, I don’t know. It will be on Channel Four (a local NBC affiliate)…It’s a little bit of fate, a little bit of destiny. We will make the best of it. A kid that’s desperate is dangerous. Joe knows it’s do or die. He’s gonna do it. He’s gonna show everybody.”

Michael Woods is a lot like Joe Smith Jr. He has a most basic name, hits the caffeine very, very hard and often and hangs out in gyms. He’s also run into a Pole time and again. Don’t tweet and walk, kids.

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