He picked fights in the East Flatbush streets growing up, overtaken by a feeling that everyone, and everything, was working against him. He got mixed up with a violent crowd and felt he had to establish his place in the neighborhood, driven to prove that when he said something, he was going to follow through on it, regardless of who, or what, stood in his way.

Colbert was angry — at the world, at nights spent in a shelter, at the sense of unfairness that permeated his life.

Until he started fighting with a purpose.

“When I started boxing, I stopped fighting,” Colbert told The Post. “I had something to live for.”