“I was living this crazy life and I wasn’t ready,” he said. “But when I saw my daughter, something just clicked and I was ready to make a change.”
He made it. These days, visits home to Florida to see his kids are broken up with work trips to his adopted home state of California. It’s not easy on him, but it’s necessary, not just to keep him focused, but to keep him on the road to a world championship. Sure, there are setbacks, like a June loss to Jim Miller, but even then, he’s got a couple fans who will be with him no matter what the result is on fight night.
“They told me, ‘Don’t worry about it, dad. You’ll be back, you’re a great fighter,’” smiled Roberts. “They keep my head up and that’s one of the best feelings. They don’t really know what’s going on, they don’t know what fighting really means to me or what I’m trying to do, they just know that I’m fighting. So for them to tell me that, it really touches my heart all the time and that’s what makes me get back on the horse and keep moving.”
Saturday, Roberts is back on the horse and ready to get back into the win column against late replacement Croom. In the great scheme of things, it’s not a fight that will move him into the rankings, but it’s a fight, and an important one because every fight is important. Not just for his record, his place in the division and his wallet, but because people are watching. And he wants to give those people who may be struggling like he was a little bit of hope.
“I want everybody to know that they can be whatever they want to be,” said Roberts. “They can look at me and see where I came from and see where I’m trying to go and know that no matter where you came from, no matter how bad your life was or no matter your situation in life, in general, as long as you want to put your foot forward to be something different, then you’re gonna be something different. Anything out in this world is for the taking; all you gotta do is put your foot forward and go take it.”
