Gary Shaw Productions’ rising prospect Roman Morales moves into the next stage of his budding professional career tonight as he takes on Jaime Villa in his first career scheduled six-round bout at the Chumash Casino Resort in Santa Ynez, California. Their bout takes place on the untelevised portion of Showtime’s Shobox: The New Generation tripleheader.
Morales (3-0, 2 KOs) of San Ardo, California notched his third pro victory just three weeks ago with a first-round knockout over Santiago Alonso at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa in Cabazon, California.
Morales took the fight with Alonso on very short notice after his fight scheduled for the week before was canceled at the last minute. The canceled fight was to have taken place at the same Chumash Casino where Morales will fight tonight, which is a little over a two hour drive from Morales’ home in San Ardo. Many of Morales’ family and friends who had hoped to see him fight in Santa Ynez could not make the trip down to Cabazon in May, and the whole situation was very disappointing for the young prospect, which affected his showing.
“He had sold 200 tickets, he had his daddy fly in from Texas and he had people from the Colorado amateur camp flying in to see him,” explains Morales’ manager Repo Ric. “They were all at the hotel by the time the fight was officially canceled. So he went into the ring [in May] very depressed and it was a mental situation he went into the ring with and he carried it all the way with him. But every time he swung, he took the kid out. The kid went down twice.”
While it was not his best showing, Morales still did what he was supposed to against Alonso, and that was win. “He worked the body well, exactly like I told him,” recalls his trainer Rodolfo Tapia. “He knocked him out at the end of the first round, so that was good. He was not the type of opponent where we need to be very careful, because he had only one fight and I don’t think he was in his weight class. He was too short, but I told Roman, ‘Think he is a champion and just be careful, because an easy fight can become difficult.’”
Tonight Morales will have some of his supportive fan base on hand as he takes on a veteran from a fighting family in Jaime Villa (8-8-2, 3 KOs) of Midland, Texas, whose most notable fighting brother is former contender Tomas Villa. Though Villa sports a less than threatening record, the vast majority of his losses came against prospects that eventually turned into contenders, and in one case, a world champion, Wilfredo Vazquez Jr. Should Morales outdo his prospect predecessors, it would make the statement that the San Ardo native is on his way to achieving the same success.
Morales weighed in at 125 Thursday, while Villa scaled 126-pounds.
Tickets for the event, promoted by Gary Shaw Productions, are available online at StarTickets.com.
Photo by Miguel Salazar
