Junior welterweight world titleholder Maurice Hooker recites a recent statistic: There were 20-plus murders in the month of May in Oak Cliff, Texas, the Dallas neighborhood where he grew up.
Hooker was 12 when his family’s apartment was robbed at gunpoint. He found his share of trouble during a turbulent youth. According to co-promoter Dino Duva and manager Arnie Verbeek, Hooker had 33 outstanding arrest warrants by the time he was 21. His mother and brother fought drug addiction. His father was in and out of his life.
“Mighty Mo” says he faced the challenges of drugs and violence in his neighborhood, but he was able to find his way out of the struggles of his childhood through boxing.
Hooker survived and ultimately thrived in June 2018 to win the WBO title by split decision over then-unbeaten Terry Flanagan in Flanagan’s hometown of Manchester, England. Two defenses followed — an exciting seventh-round knockout of mandatory challenger Alex Saucedo in November in Saucedo’s hometown of Oklahoma City and a near-shutout decision of Mikkel LesPierre on March 9 in Verona, New York.
Now Hooker is set for the biggest fight of his career. He will make his first seven-figure payday for a hometown title unification bout with WBC champion Jose Ramirez on Saturday (DAZN, 9 p.m. ET) at the College Park Center on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington.
“I moved out [of Oak Cliff], but I still got family there. I’m there like every other day when I’m not training for a fight,” Hooker said. “My goal is to get them out of there, my whole family. So this fight is very important to me, just not for me, but my family. If I can get everybody out of there I’ll be happy.”
The 29-year-old Hooker (26-0-3, 17 KOs) will be well on his way if he can defeat Ramirez (24-0, 16 KOs), 26, of Avenal, California. Both fighters will be making their third title defense in a bout that’s viewed by most as a toss-up between two unbeaten titleholders in their prime. It’s a major fight at an arena about 20 miles from the neighborhood Hooker almost didn’t make it out of.
Hooker said he can thank boxing and his amateur coach, Sultan Ali, for his exodus from Oak Cliff. It was Ali who put him on the right path after his stepfather introduced Hooker to the sport as a teenager.
“I was in the streets, but I had a coach, Sultan Ali, my amateur coach, and he stayed on me,” Hooker said. “He came and picked me up every day for the gym. I’d be in the back up to no good, and he’d be in front of the house blowing the horn.
“I was up to no good and [the other kids] would be like, ‘You got to go. You got someone’s attention around here.’ I had to walk out to the truck like, I guess I’ll go to the gym. He just stayed on me while some of the others were shootin’ dice or doing something wrong. But he was picking me up, blowin’ the horn, blowin’ up my phone. An old guy who really had nothing to do. He was retired from work. Boxing was his life, so he was there for me.”
Hooker won a Dallas Golden Gloves title and owned a 97-7 amateur record before Ali introduced him to manager Verbeek and trainer Vince Parra, who have been with him since the start of his pro career in 2011. Verbeek helped Hooker work with authorities to clear up the legal issues and keep him out of jail.
“Arnie treats Maurice like a son,” said Roc Nation’s Duva, who co-promotes Hooker with Matchroom Boxing’s Eddie Hearn. “He took him into his gym and started getting him fights.”
Parra was a significant factor in turning Hooker’s raw talent into championship material.
“When I got him, he was a young prospect,” Parra said. “I told a reporter he was like a bolt of lightning, and I just knew that if we harnessed it and put it in the right way that he could do something special.”
Hooker, Verbeek and Parra have a tight bond, but what Ali did for him is always in the back of Hooker’s mind. He knows it’s what saved him. That’s just one of the reasons Hooker wanted to defend his title at home.
“I want to show all the kids that dreams do come true,” said Hooker, who used some of the money he made from the Saucedo fight to buy a house and move to the Dallas suburb of Forney. “I want the kids to come see me fight. And if they see me fight, it might motivate them to get out of there, to work hard, train harder. I want kids to be like, ‘Maurice, he’s a world champion. He started from nothing. Look at him now.'”
Hooker made it a point to give back to his community. He said he made appearances before the start of training camp to talk to schoolchildren about their future.
“I always tell them, man, just believe in yourself, have faith in what you do,” Hooker said. “I don’t care if you’re a bus driver, just have faith in what you do. I tell them you always want to try to improve yourself in life, don’t settle for less.
“It’s summertime. Kids don’t have nothing to do so they’re just on the streets, you know? They just listen to music. Some want to be drug dealers, some want to be gangsters. [I tell them to] get a normal job, train, work for it.”
Duva, who has been promoting Hooker since 2015 when he appeared on the undercard of the Gennady Golovkin-David Lemieux middleweight title unification fight, has been pleased with Hooker’s introspection.
“Maurice has really matured a lot from when I first started working with him,” Duva said. “When you think about where he came from — it’s not a unique story, but he came from such a rough childhood.
“That old coach — you’ve got to love it when people are willing to help someone coming up in a bad area. You have to respect that and like that. A kid like [Hooker] at the time, he really needed that guidance.”
Hooker agreed. He knows that without boxing and Ali picking him up every day to make sure he got to the gym that his life would be different.
“If he wasn’t there, I’d still be back there in the shed doing bad things,” Hooker said. “And now I’m here. I stayed with it. Like I tell everybody, just believe in yourself — no matter what.”