Trainer Marc Farrait has been involved in some big nights, but a week ago at the Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida, he was in the corner for one that will stay with him long after he swaps his boxing mitts for a rocking chair.
It was there where his 175lbs contender Najee Lopez outlasted Manuel Gallegos over eight torrid and violent rounds.
Lopez was bloodied from three cuts and dropped in the seventh round but rallied to settle matters in the decisive eighth, grinding away until Gallegos finally wilted.
Lopez dropped to his knees to celebrate and Farrait joined him. Lopez’s blood settled on his own cheeks and they shared the moment.
“Never, never, never,” Farrait said with a smile when asked if he had been in a fight like that. “I gotta be honest, right? I can’t sit up here and say that. I’ve been in big fights but never something like that. Canelo [Alvarez] and Edgar [Berlanga] was huge. But this fight here, it was on a certain different level – not the level of Canelo and Edgar, but it was on a very, very special level for me. It was very personal, emotional, and to me, this is probably one of the greatest wins that I’ve had.”
Farrait said he always knew his fighter had what it would take to dig deep when it mattered. For one, he reckons he has seen it in the gym.
Farrait knew that Gallegos was not going to give Lopez time or space. He knew Najee would have to make room and time in order to set up his attacks.
In training, they worked towards several eventualities.
“I really can’t talk about what happens in the gym,” Farrait continued. “But my job as a teacher is to make sure I find someone to kick Najee’s ass. That’s all I work on, right? Who can I find out there to kick Najee’s ass? Najee’s job is to make sure it never happens. I’ve put Najee in some sparring matches that you would think should be on TV. Not all the time, but just to check to see his grit, to see him in adversity, because everybody could fight when they’re comfortable. For Najee, I make him do things that other young fighters won’t because I prepare him for that big stage. And most of the preparation is mental. It’s not physical. Physically, you’re gonna get hurt. Physically, you’re gonna feel pain. But can you mentally push your way through it? Can you push your way through it and stay sharp? And one day I’ll probably talk about it, what that kid’s been through inside the gym. He’s overcome stuff that many people can’t. So I knew when I seen that, I just know what I got out there.”
But as confident as Farrait might be in his charge, there is no question that Lopez didn’t have things his own way against Gallegos. On the contrary, Lopez was hit too much and sustained damage.
And that meant Farrait’s job in between rounds became even more important. Was he having to deliver strategic advice or motivation as the rounds got harder?
“Not motivation,” he said. “Motivation doesn’t get you far. It’s the discipline. So it goes back to his preparation. We always plan for hypothetical situations on a knockdown, if you’re hurt, if you get cut. His job was to let the cutman do his job, get the blood out as much as he can. When the blood’s in your eye, you’re gonna have to focus. You’re gonna have to be disciplined and lock in. It was more of reminding him what we’ve been through in the gym and when these things happen. Basically, I was just telling him, go back to your jab.
“Just create distance, right, so you can see [through the cut]. There’s nothing wrong with your legs. So you fight with your legs, you don’t fight with your arms. So even if you got a little bit of blood in your eye, or a lot of blood in your eye, try to create distance so it gives you a little bit of extra time to see him moving in and just go back to your jab. He’s gonna run into shots. And once he runs into those shots, then you could just tee off. Not at a hundred percent.”
But Lopez has, at times, gone 100 per cent when perhaps he should have hung back a little.
“We see what happened when he went a hundred percent. He got dropped, right?” Farrait said. “He hurt Gallegos and he just started whaling. But we work on those things. When he got cut, he knew to stay composed. And then at times, you know, Najee has heart, he has grit. I told him after the seventh round, ‘Hey, I know you want to push this guy back. It’s good. Let’s push him back. But let’s push him back properly. I know you want to fight with this guy. I know you can, but let’s work this. Once you get him hurt, then you can empty the tank.’ I said after the seventh, ‘I need the eighth, the ninth and the 10th. So let’s be intelligent and let’s be educated. Let’s have controlled aggression.’”
But Lopez walked on to one in the seventh as he tried to get Gallegos out of there. He got dropped for getting greedy.
“Yes. And we’ve seen that before, right? We’ve seen it with [Steven] Sumpter. He [Najee] got a little bit greedy. He had him on the ropes. Sumpter threw a straight left. Najee hit the canvas, bounced back up. It was a flash knockdown. He came right back. So it’s getting greedy, but also having the experience to know, ‘let me shoot three shots. Let me not just go to town.’ And I told him, ‘there’s a time for that.’”
Farrait told Lopez to at least see if anything coming back is venomous before going all out, and in the eighth Lopez could feel that he’d taken the sting out of the Mexican’s punches.
“There was no shot, there was nothing on it,” Farrait adds. “So he just kept whaling until he got him out of there. But when he’s fresh, it’s hard.”
Could and should Lopez have made it easier?
“If he didn’t get cut, it would have been easier,” Farrait continued. “Just think about it, right? “The first round, he was smooth. Hit him with that uppercut, ended the round. I said, ‘Perfect. We’re going to get this guy there soon enough. Stay disciplined, stay behind that lead hand, faint. Make sure you create that distance. This guy’s going to run into all those shots, Najee.’
“But when he got cut in the second, it was like he had two cuts and blood falling down his eye and he couldn't see. So you have to make a decision. Do I run and be very defensive or do I try to create a little bit of distance and still fight so he knows I’m in the fight? It’ll slow him down a little bit because Gallegos, once he’s seen the cut, he amped up, right? He became more aggressive, more aggressive, more aggressive.”
This is where Farrait believes his fighter could be a great one. Lopez was cut early, persisted and won the fight. Gallegos was cut late and wilted.
“Imagine if Gallegos got cut in the second, this fight would be over in the third or fourth,” said Farrait. “Najee was a different animal. Everybody says that he could have made it easier, but anyone who knows boxing know that on a cut like that with a guy coming in like that, with a big guy as a puncher, with blood in your eye and that takes away from your range, your vision and the ring is small, it’s a 20 by 20. … You got two big guys in there. There’s really not much you can do. So Najee did the right thing. That’s why it was so dramatic and so personal for me.”
Farrait knows there is still plenty of work to do. He believes the victory puts Lopez on a par with the likes of Anthony Yarde, Joshua Buatsi, Callum Smith and David Morrell – whom Gallegos had been sparring with – and Farrait would like any of those fights for his man next.
The planning will start soon, but for now they can enjoy the moment.
Farrait’s face was smeared with his fighter’s blood after they embraced in the ring.
“I didn't even know that,” Farrait said. “I hugged him and I just forgot about the blood. It [the happiness and celebration] was more for him. It was more of everything he had to overcome as a young fighter. And it was more of, I know how hard of a training camp he had. I know what he's been through. And that to me was the epitome of who Najee is, right? And I think that the 175s know it. He’s not an easy out. He’s a tough out and people would think twice about fighting him. This just put him on another level as far as experience. We know he has courage. We know he has the moxie. But it was more of me feeling what he was feeling. I’ve never seen him do that [drop to his knees to celebrate]. He just walked to the center of the ring and just dropped and raised his hands. He was actually surrendering saying, ‘I did it, I finished. I used everything I had to finish. And what I had was just enough to get me here.’ And he thanked God. Because who knows, maybe if Gallegos would have got up, I don’t know what would have happened. Anything can happen at that moment. But it was more of me feeling happy and giving him all the credit.”
It means, said Farrait, that there will be no easy fights now. Lopez will have a target on his back, or face someone of a similar level to himself.
Immediately after the fight, trainer and fighter went to hospital. Lopez’s three cuts required a stitch here and there, and they slept in most of the next day.
Then they went for a walk and reflected on what had happened.
“We just talked about just things that we could have done different,” said Farrait.
Lopez also reinstalled X and Instagram to find that “everything’s going crazy.”
“And I was like, you deserve it, man. You know, you put on that type of performance, it’s obvious that the world gets to acknowledge and see who you are. Because it was a great fight. And you know, in your heart, you can do better.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, a BWAA award winner, and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
