It's not the typical father-son activity, but it was the way things were.
"He used to bring boxing gloves, take me out on the corner, and tell all the people on the block, 'Yo, what up? I'll give you $100 if you can knock out my son,'" said Morera, a smile perched on the edge of his lips. "And dude, we used to go at it."
It's hard to believe if you see him now, and Morera, with his gray eyes and short, perfectly manicured beard, looks like he should be commuting to a New York City advertising job instead of sitting sideways on a bench in a boxing gym on a Thursday morning.
But, like his father, he's built for athletics — although he doesn't have overwhelming height at 5-foot, 9-inches tall, a collection of muscles and veins bulge from every bared inch, and he is one of those guys that never runs out of energy, is always excited to be wherever he is.
After all, it's not without pride that he notes that through all of those streetfights, his father never once had to pay up.
Breaking the mold
Morera, who lives in Pompton Lakes, isn't the stereotypical fighter. For one thing, he's 31, which isn't old for an amateur but for an amateur who wants to turn pro, it's ancient. He was captain of the DePaul football team in 2002, and has accumulated a base of strength through years of weightlifting that has made him as wide as he is tall. His background isn't broken, and he was raised, as he said, with "great morals."
But there was always that other side. Especially concerning his father, who has had a profound effect on Morera, for better or worse.
He was a boxer, too, not a pro but a very good amateur, and a minor league baseball player who once tried out for the Mets. Some of Morera's earliest memories are of his dad going through his morning routine of pushups, sit-ups, and shadowboxing, and in his spare time, he would teach his son how to throw combinations or slap box.
He brought Morera to his gym, the legendary Lou Costello Sportsman Club in Paterson, and it was there that he fell in love amidst the sounds of thumping speedbags and skipping rope.
"I walked in, and I just felt at home right away," he said.
He started training, and the precocious boy even had a few fights under his belt by age 10.
Like his dad, he was always a little bigger, a little stronger than kids his own age, and in boxing, he found he could hit harder than people expected.
But then his father got mixed up in some bad things — things that aren't talked about — and shortly afterward was deported back to the Dominican Republic. After that, Morera became attracted to sports like football and weightlifting, and left his fighting days behind.
That was many years ago, and a lot has changed since. Morera became a police officer in his hometown of Passaic and married his wife Josie. Together they had a son, Mason, who is now 2 years old.
He retired from the force around that time, and picked up several trades, like real estate or private investigations, to fill his time.
But there was still an old ghost haunting him, one that he couldn't get past. He missed the challenge only the ring can provide, the thrill that only a real, honest fight can give.
So he called Joe Zabry, who owns Aces Boxing Club in Boonton, and told him he wanted to get in the gym again.
"I've always had boxing in my heart, and when I retired from the police department, I said, 'This is my time. It's now or never,'" he said.
Months of intensive training followed, and although Morera's boxing skill was intact, he had to "get his lungs up" (a boxing term for increasing his endurance). Daily double sessions of strength and conditioning work, mixed with sports-specific exercises like hitting the heavy bag and sparring, have trimmed him down from 220 pounds when he walked in to his current fighting weight of about 175.
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| Morera shadowboxes with his father years ago |
Seven months later, his work is paying off: Morera is 4-0 with two brutal knockouts. His last fight, against Anthony Patanella, ended just 19 seconds in after he landed a left hook that shattered Patanella's nose.
But it's not just his battering-ram punches that shock his opponents, Zabry said. It's how violent he is in the ring.
"The hell with the physical attributes, it's that aggression, that need to step in and put your lights out, that can't be taught," he said. "You can't teach someone how to fight. I can teach someone how to box, but fighting is a natural thing. And when someone gets hit and they come back harder … you can't teach that."
Zabry wants Morera to "fight like a dog" over the next two years and get at least 30 amateur bouts under his belt. After that, the sky is the limit for the man whose bucket list involves at least one professional fight.
"I'll see how it goes. If it ain't for me, it ain't for me. But my mindset is go all the way, or don't [expletive] go at all," Morera said.
A fragile balance
It isn't easy to balance such a demanding workout schedule with the commitment that comes with a young family, and with Morera recently signing on as a co-owner of the gym, finding time to spend with his wife and son is difficult.
It caused arguments in the beginning, he said, and he had to sit his wife down and explain just how important this was.
"I said, 'Listen Hon, I want you to understand that this is something that I feel I need. I feel like I'm missing something, and this is what makes me happy. We need to figure something out so that I can pursue this, so that I don't feel empty inside," he said.
They came to an agreement: She won't interfere with his training as long as he spends enough time with his family. Morera said he couldn't do what he does without her support.
"Having [Josie] OK with what I do drives me even further, and it makes me feel good inside to do what I'm doing," he said.
He's been careful to drill into his son that boxing is no excuse for being aggressive in everyday life, but Mason sees him, and always wants to join his shadowboxing drills or pushup routines. And that, he said, is why he's doing it all.
"I want to influence him in a positive way where if he does take the sport, he can say, 'Yo, my daddy did this, my daddy did that.' And it's only going to motivate him further. It's almost like my dad — still to this day, from seeing all the stuff I did [with him] … it still pushes me every time I step in the ring, or every time I'm hitting a bag. It takes me back to those days," he said.
His father, of course, is the one person he hasn't heard from regarding his new career. He knows about it, Morera said, and is thrilled, even offering advice about what weight his son should go down to for his fights. But the only time Morera is ever at a loss for words is when he's talking about their relationship.
"It's my dad. I still love him … and no matter what he did, I'll never think bad about [him]," he said. "Ah. It's complicated."
Email: janoski@northjersey.com
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