You’d have to be one of the best salesmen on planet Earth to successfully do your job with the face of a mixed martial artist post-fight. Paris Moran has proven time and again he can do just that.
After fighting professionally for three years and owning the bumps and bruises that come with the training it takes to pull off a 7-1 record in one of the strongest promotions out there, it can’t be easy to walk into work looking like a freshly groomed salesman.
… So Paris Moran doesn’t.
“At first, customers do look at me like, ‘What the f*** does this guy do on the weekends?’” Moran explained with a laugh. “If I come in with black eyes and scratches on my neck that look like hickies I just look like I’m trouble, so sometimes right off the bat I’ll be like, ‘I know this looks bad but…’ and then I’ll explain what I do and they start laughing and they’ll ask questions about it.”
It’s hard to know for sure if the customers ever doubt Moran’s claims, but in terms of “looking like a fighter,” he falls somewhere in the “Chase Hooper” range. It would be hard to imagine every customer would look at him and think, ‘My T-Mobile guy is a fighter.’ There are plenty of times he might just look like he got beat up.
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“Personality-wise, people don’t think I fight,” Moran said. “I’m not an a*****e. People still have this idea that fighters are big, mean and rude and whatnot, but a lot of us are real cool, down to Earth people. Just by looking at me, I look like a salesman. When I tell people I fight they’re like, ‘There’s no way you fight.’”
With a boss who supports his double life as much as Moran’s does, and a personality made for talking to customers, if Moran can diffuse customers’ concerns about his appearance as well as he does, he might as well continue working at T-Mobile until you’re fighting in the T-Mobile.
Moran has taken his licks, no doubt, but with his level of confidence and personality, there has actually only been one fight that left him self-conscious about his appearance. He stressed it was nothing he couldn’t handle, but after a particularly rough third round in his amateur career, he knew he was in for a long shift when he came back.
“I was piecing him up the first two and a half rounds, but in the third I threw a head kick and he caught it, took me down and was on top of me the last minute and a half and he was just making it rain, man,” Moran said. “I didn’t get hit the whole fight but that last minute and a half I took a lot of damage. My face was beat up, I had scratches all over, black eyes, nose was twisted to the side. I texted my boss and said, ‘Am I good to go to work?’ this was before COVID and the masks and stuff. The mask would have helped a lot. My boss was just like, ‘You’re good to go! Come on in.’ Every customer just gave me that look.”
At 7-1 professionally, it’s obvious what he’s doing is working in the cage, and with enough charm to not only do his job but also on occasion get customers to attend his fights, he’s a promoter’s, customer’s, and store manager’s model employee.
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