Angel Perez has focused on mental health issues outside of the ring to give him the best chance of peak performances inside the ring.
Perez faces Sachin Rohila in a four-round junior welterweight bout on Friday at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, California. The bout will stream on DAZN.
Perez was off to a red-hot start to his career, building a record of 9-0 (7 KOs), until he faced Axl Melendez, a tough veteran who upset Demontaze Duncan in 2023. The result: A draw. Now, Perez, 23, will look to rebound from his disappointing stalemate.
“I found myself lost in life,” Perez of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, told BoxingScene. “It has changed the way I react to certain things. It has changed the way I train in the gym, and I take the sport more seriously now.”
Perez, a two-time national champion who had always placed in the top three of national tournaments since he was 13, was disappointed in his training methods and the way he conducted himself.
“I took a lot of bad habits out, one of which was allowing people to stress me out,” Perez said. “I was able to train harder.”
Perez noted that for the Melendez fight, he would run for 30 to 40 minutes. Now, he runs for hours ahead of this fight. While being honest and saying he is still working on recovery, which he admits has been a learning curve. Rohila, 8-4 (2 KOs), is a 28-year-old from Delhi, India, enters on a three-fight losing streak.
“I feel he is awkward,” Perez said of his opponent. “I don’t think he will be able to withstand my power and my IQ in the ring.”
Perez is trained by Jose Martinez, along with his uncle Carlos Perez, with cutman Julio Alvarez also tending to him in the corner. He explained he felt like he let down the young fighters who looked up to him with his behavior after his last performance.
“I speak to them with intelligence and I speak to them with discipline,” Perez said. “Unfortunately, on that night, I wasn’t able to give them a good example of what a leader is.”
“I didn’t like the way I reacted to the draw,” Perez said. “I sounded really negative, and that is not me. That is not the person I am.”
Perez seeks redemption, showing the fruits of his labor after working hard on growth.
“I am glad it was a draw as a learning experience,” Perez said. “It was a feeling I never want to feel ever again.”
