The only equipment  a boxer really needs are the hands. Those are the instruments used to ply their craft. They are protected by leather gloves. That's what the public sees. But underneath those gloves lies the real safeguard — a layer of gauze and tape weaved to protect the fist from the damage accrued while throwing punch, after punch, after punch.

Oceanside's Joe Quiambao has been protecting hands for two decades. He gets calls from some of the top fighters in boxing and next Saturday night, he will be wrapping the hands of Brooklyn's Teofimo Lopez before he enters the ring at Madison Square Garden to defend his WBO super lightweight title against Shakur Stevenson.

"When I wrap someone's hands, it won't make them a bigger puncher," said Quiambao, "but it will give them the confidence to let their hands go. I want a fighter to trust that he or she can punch without any concerns."

In 1993, Quiambao won a New York Golden Gloves title at junior flyweight (106 pounds). He knew the professional options for fighters at that weight were limited and didn't think there was much of a career for him in boxing. He was on his way to becoming a physical education teacher but realized he was a half credit short of graduating from Hunter College. He took an internship with boxing promoter Lou DiBella and his life changed forever.

Quiambao learned the business of boxing and worked with fighters on almost every level — arranging travel, matchmaking and acting as a cutman. Along the way, he started wrapping hands.

"That moment when a fighter gets his hands wrapped is sacred," said Joe Higgins, a veteran Long Island trainer. "Once a guy gets comfortable with someone wrapping their hands, for the most part, they don't want to change. The fact that Joe is still being asked to do this, speaks a lot about him. I've known Joe since the Golden Gloves. He's become one of the premier hand wrappers in boxing."

In the gym, fighters use thick canvas hand wraps to protect their hands. They apply tape on top of the canvas wraps and sometimes add a sponge to help absorb the shock of punching. On fight night, the amount of hand protection a fighter can use is restricted.

Although the rules can vary by commission, in New York, a fighter is allowed a maximum of 15 yards of gauze and one roll of athletic tape (about 10 yards) per hand. Tape over the knuckles is prohibited. So is stacking, which means all of the gauze must be used before tape is applied. A fighter cannot have gauze, tape, gauze, tape. It's only one layer of each.

"When I wrap hands on the night of the fight, I try to support the knuckles and metatarsals as much as I can," Quiambao said. "That's where most of the injuries can happen.”

The first time Quiambao was asked to wrap Lopez's hands was for his seventh pro fight. It didn't go well.

"It was one of those days," said Quiambao, who is 52. "Everything was going wrong. I was running late to the fight. I rushed the job. When I was done, I was trimming some of the gauze. I cut Teofimo, not once, but twice, in his palm."

Lopez won that fight by knockout but Quiambao didn't wrap his hands for the next three fights. In July of 2018, Lopez broke his right hand and Quiambao was asked back later that year. In their first fight back, Lopez knocked out Mason Menard on ESPN and they have been together ever since.

“He’s an incredible talent,” Quiambao said of Lopez. “I arranged one of his first sparring sessions as a pro. You could see it then. He was destined for this.”

Lopez became one of the sport's biggest attractions, winning the IBF lightweight title in 2019. He became undisputed lightweight champion the following year with a win over Vasiliy Lomachenko, at the time regarded as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the sport.

Quiambao currently works full-time for David McWater and Split T management.  The fighters in that stable include Olympian Delante Johnson and world champion Tiara Brown. Quiambao also wraps the hands of Long Island prospects Donte Layne and Marcos Paz.

“Every fighter is different,” Quiambao said. “Some have different preferences. Some use less tape. Some fighters ask me to wrap a certain way because they think it will make them punch harder. I don't wrap to make you punch harder. I wrap to protect your hands. If you can punch, you can punch. I just want to make you more confident when you are punching."