These are the best days of Omar Trinidad’s life. The unbeaten “King of Los Angeles” is in the Top 10 of all four major sanctioning bodies, he’s near the top of the bill for 360 Promotions’ Saturday event at Commerce Casino, and even though Alexander Espinoza is going to be trying to punch him in the face this weekend, it seems like nothing can take the smile off the 29-year-old’s face.

That’s what happens when all the hard work starts to pay off and people are starting to recognize that he just might have what it takes to become a world champion in the featherweight division.

But here’s the catch. Start reading too many of those press clippings and listening to what the fans have to say, and that’s when an “0” turns into a “1”. Trinidad knows it, so he keeps his reflections on the good times to those long miles on the road.

“I tend to be locked in on work and I don’t think too much about what could happen or what I’ve accomplished,” he said. “I don’t like to get full of myself. I just keep working because I’m not where I want to be yet. But I do reflect at night when I can't sleep sometimes or most of the time when I really get to think is when I'm running. Because at the gym I'm just thinking about how I'm going to land a punch on an opponent and just focusing on combinations.

"But when I'm at home, just relaxing, or running is when I get to reflect on all these things I accomplished and how grateful and blessed I am to be in this position. And honestly I’m just excited for what's to come. I know there's big things around the corner.”

Not that Trinidad is content to sit and wait for the phone to ring with a title fight. The way he sees it, fighters fight. In 2023, he made the walk four times. He got in three bouts last year, and in January, he got started with a near shutout win over Mike Plania. It’s the perfect recipe for success: Trinidad gets to stay busy and sharp, he’s building a sizable fanbase in the Southern California area, and with each win, the number next to his name in the rankings keeps getting smaller.

As for Saturday night, the house should be packed again, something not lost on the appreciative Trinidad.

“It feels good,” he said. “It proves that all this hard work I've been doing is not going unnoticed. And a lot of people may be seeing that as pressure when it comes to this point of the career, but, to me, it’s nothing but motivation, knowing that every time I show up, it's going to be a full house. And I'm very thankful for my city and the people that support me.”

No pressure, then?

“No, sir, just motivation.”

At this point, if a fighter is nearly 20 fights in and is ranked across the board, that kind of cool is expected. But expectations don’t always translate into reality. When they do, though, the answer for that grace under fire usually comes from a place far removed from the boxing gym.

“I feel like I’ve always been under pressure from the city that I come from,” said Trinidad, born and raised in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of L.A. “It's not easy to grow up in a place like this. I'm grateful for where I live; there’s a lot of culture, a lot of blue-collar people, but I grew up a little bit less fortunate and so I always had that pressure to show up and show out.”

The pressure to get caught up in street life was also there, but his parents weren’t having that.

“Don't get me wrong, in the city there’s always temptation or your friends trying to pressure you to go into stuff, but I feel like my parents did a great job,” Trinidad said. “My dad saw that I had this little aggression in me, and I was always trying to fight in the street when I was younger. So he took me into the gym, and since then, it kept me off the streets.”

In other words, he was more afraid of his father than anyone on the streets.

“In a sense,” he laughs. “Mexican parents are tough, man. They're not easy.”

Making a career as a prizefighter isn’t easy, either, but Trinidad is making it look that way. After a split draw in his pro debut in Tijuana in 2018, he took nearly two years off, returned and hasn’t lost in 18 fights. And while he admits to being tested by Jose Perez (KO8) and Hector Andres Sosa (UD12), he’s been smart enough to make his adjustments, find another gear and get the job done. That means that he’s getting closer to where he wants to be, and now he feels confident enough to start looking ahead.

“I'm looking at all the champions, just observing and wondering what the right way will be to go about it,” Trinidad said. “And honestly, I'm excited because all the champions right now are tough, and my style of boxing and their style of boxing is a good recipe for a great night of boxing and even one for the books."

Trinidad smiles. What a time to be a featherweight contender.