Before he fought Daniel Jacobs on April 24 in Chicago, Caleb Truax lived the kind of everyman life you normally only see in hardscrabble underdog boxing flicks.
The next time Caleb Truax goes to the liquor store, it will be because he wants to, not because he has to.
By day, he worked at MGM Liquors in Champlin, Minnesota, a strip-mall hooch hut tucked behind a Wendy’s. By night, his training turned from in-the-bag to the heavy bag.
But that all changed after the Jacobs fight. Even though he ended up on the wrong end of a 12th-round TKO, Caleb Truax was able to leave the liquor game behind and focus full time on boxing. This would be the part of the movie where the lunchpail fighter taps into hidden wells of resolve and rides it all the way to championship bouts.
Whether that part of the script gets written remains to be seen. But after the Jacobs loss, Truax got to take some time off for the first time in his career before he had to start preparing for Fernando Guerrero in Friday’s Bounce TV showdown (9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT) at Full Sail Live in Winter Park, Florida.
“I took about a month-and-a-half off. I went fishing,” Truax said. “I hung out with my lady and my dog.”
The simple joys of lady and dog notwithstanding, going full-time fighter has had tangible in-gym benefits: It’s a lot easier to go 12 rounds with the speed bag and the rope when you’re not going rounds with 12-packs.
“Not having to work is a lot more conducive to better workouts and getting better rest in between,” he said. “Now I can wake up in the morning and feel fresh. My legs feel good. Sometimes at night [after] working 16 hours a day, I’d get home and feel dead.”
The restorative powers of downtime are somehow even more invigorating than the restorative powers of fine Scotch? Who knew?
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