From training in garage to fighting at The Peake
There was never a vehicle in the one-car garage at the Morales house in Eufaula.
The garage was for boxing.
The set-up wasn't opulent, just a couple heavy bags and double end bags. Aaron Morales remembers his grandpa driving to eastern Oklahoma from Kansas to help his dad build everything.
"It was basic," Morales said of the garage gym and the work done there, "but we did it every day, so the basics are what get you far."
They've taken him all the way to The Peake.
Morales will fight on the undercard during Top Rank Boxing's event Saturday in Oklahoma City. After turning pro last year and winning his first two bouts by knockout, the
bantamweight will be in the first fight of the night, scheduled for four rounds against David Martino. Morales marvels at the situation.
“I never thought I was going to have a pro fight in my home state this quick,” he said. “I feel blessed to have this opportunity.”
It’s an opportunity that didn’t come easily.
Morales started boxing when he was 6 or 7. No one in the Morales family remembers exactly because Martin Morales got all his sons involved in the sport as soon as they showed any interest. Martin never boxed but loved the sport.
Televised fights were big family events, then every morning after, the boys would wake to the TV blaring the sound of the fights. Martin taped all the big fights on the VCR, and the next day, they would re-watch every moment.
Aaron’s two older brothers got into boxing first, but he quickly followed. Once all the brothers were boxing, Martin decided to convert the garage.
“We were out there all the time,” Aaron said.
Any time of the day. Any time of the year. The only exception was when the uninsulated structure became totally unbearable in the winter. In those rare but frigid instances, the brothers would move their training out of the garage and into a room inside the house. They made due
with whatever they had.
It was the same lifting weights and doing conditioning. The brothers would go into the yard and flip tires or do high knees or toss the medicine ball or hit a tire with a sledgehammer. Fancy, it was not. Effective, it was. Aaron became one of the best amateur boxers in Oklahoma, known for devastating body shots and a powerful left hook. Over the next decade, he amassed a 120-9 record.
His final amateur matches were his best. He went to the prestigious National Golden Gloves Boxing Championships, a
grueling tournament that not only features the best amateur boxers from all over the country but also stretches across five days. There are lots of matches and tons of challenges.
Morales had lots of doubts about winning.
"I don't have the training that a lot of other people have," he remembers thinking. "They've got gyms full of fighters. They've got the good sparring."
A steady stream of topnotch competition was the thing Morales felt he most lacked. There aren’t a ton of boxers in Oklahoma, and there are even less in and around Eufaula. He didn't
practice regularly much less daily against other highly ranked fighters. Sometimes, his dad would work deals with other boxers in the region, and Morales would get together with them to spar. Still, he lacked the competition that most other top amateurs had.
"It was always in the back of my head, 'Man, there might be somebody that's just in better shape,'" he said. "I knew I had the skill."
And ultimately, that belief in himself pushed him over the top at Golden Gloves. Morales won the 123-pound title and became only the third Oklahoman in the past six decades to win a national championship. When the referee raised Morales’ hand in the title bout, he remembers looking at his corner where his dad was standing.
"It was a good feeling," he said, "because I saw the look in my dad's eyes."
Morales can't wait to see that look Saturday night. Even though he has moved to California to train with former world champ Roberto Garcia, Morales knows he wouldn't be fighting at The Peake had his father not converted their garage into a gym.
The family didn't have the means to make it fancy, but Aaron Morales had the will to make it effective.
"All the hard work," he said, "is paying off."