After fighting professionally for three years and owning the bumps and bruises that come with the training it takes to pull off a 7-1 record in one of the strongest promotions out there, it can’t be easy to walk into work looking like a freshly groomed salesman.
… So Paris Moran doesn’t.
“At first, customers do look at me like, ‘What the f*** does this guy do on the weekends?’” Moran explained with a laugh. “If I come in with black eyes and scratches on my neck that look like hickies I just look like I’m trouble, so sometimes right off the bat I’ll be like, ‘I know this looks bad but…’ and then I’ll explain what I do and they start laughing and they’ll ask questions about it.”
It’s hard to know for sure if the customers ever doubt Moran’s claims, but in terms of “looking like a fighter,” he falls somewhere in the “Chase Hooper” range. It would be hard to imagine every customer would look at him and think, ‘My T-Mobile guy is a fighter.’ There are plenty of times he might just look like he got beat up.
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“Personality-wise, people don’t think I fight,” Moran said. “I’m not an a*****e. People still have this idea that fighters are big, mean and rude and whatnot, but a lot of us are real cool, down to Earth people. Just by looking at me, I look like a salesman. When I tell people I fight they’re like, ‘There’s no way you fight.’”
With a boss who supports his double life as much as Moran’s does, and a personality made for talking to customers, if Moran can diffuse customers’ concerns about his appearance as well as he does, he might as well continue working at T-Mobile until you’re fighting in the T-Mobile.
Moran has taken his licks, no doubt, but with his level of confidence and personality, there has actually only been one fight that left him self-conscious about his appearance. He stressed it was nothing he couldn’t handle, but after a particularly rough third round in his amateur career, he knew he was in for a long shift when he came back.
“I was piecing him up the first two and a half rounds, but in the third I threw a head kick and he caught it, took me down and was on top of me the last minute and a half and he was just making it rain, man,” Moran said. “I didn’t get hit the whole fight but that last minute and a half I took a lot of damage. My face was beat up, I had scratches all over, black eyes, nose was twisted to the side. I texted my boss and said, ‘Am I good to go to work?’ this was before COVID and the masks and stuff. The mask would have helped a lot. My boss was just like, ‘You’re good to go! Come on in.’ Every customer just gave me that look.”
At 7-1 professionally, it’s obvious what he’s doing is working in the cage, and with enough charm to not only do his job but also on occasion get customers to attend his fights, he’s a promoter’s, customer’s, and store manager’s model employee.
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