Arnold Barboza Jr. is settling in for a breakfast of champions.

Before he’s ready to talk, he needs 30 minutes to savor the banana oatmeal pancakes his partner made him, ones he’s been craving along with the general comforts of home. Between preparation for his November 2024 victory over Jose Ramirez and his WBO interim 140-pound title win over Jack Catterall over the weekend, Barboza has spent the vast majority of the last six months either in training camp or in the city he’s been fighting in. Between his trip home from beating Ramirez in Saudi Arabia and heading to Big Bear, California to prepare to fight Catterall in Manchester, Barboza only had time for a haircut and to pack a new suitcase.

All of that so that he could come home on February 16 with an extra piece of luggage, the case holding the coveted title belt. Above all else, it’s a product of patience, the payoff of a plan hatched when he and his girl were sophomores in South El Monte.

“We’ve been talking about it since we were kids,” the 33-year old Barboza told The Ring. “We were just thinking like, remember when we were doing this and that to get money and we were broke, and now we’re living good.”

While every fighter’s tale can be analogized as a bet on themselves, Barboza’s stands out because of the chips he pushed to the center of the table. During the early stages of his pro career, Barboza held down a secure, well-paying job, earning up to $29 an hour as a member of the Teamsters 630 union. Though the standard shift was from seven o’clock at night until five in the morning the next day, sometimes with mandatory overtime he’d be working until 11 AM. He’d sometimes be able to catch a 30-minute nap in his car before putting in a full day’s worth of boxing training, before coming home to his family, catching about four hours of sleep and repeating the process over and over again for close to six years.

The first true professional contract Barboza was offered would have netted him less than he would have made sticking with his day job. Even understanding the financial risk, Barboza had a dream he wanted to chase in the ring, and a level of financial comfort beyond the reliable promise of the union gig. With the approval of his father slash trainer and his family, they set out to achieve the dream they realized over the weekend.

“People don't understand, man, that the sacrifice, the hard work it takes, you know. I mean, I've missed a lot of my kids' birthdays, I miss Father's Day, I've missed holidays, I've missed New Year's, Christmases, but you know what, man, I'm hoping that you know when it's all said and done that it's really worth it,” said Barboza. “I missed very, very crucial times that I won't get back you know with my kids, but I know they understand. You know, it's the life I chose, man. It's the career I chose. I could have been safe and I could have been working in a warehouse job, and, you know, but I just, I just didn't see that for my future. So, I'm happy, I'm happy now, man, and I'm excited.”

Fighters’ personalities inside the ring are not always a mirror of themselves outside of the ring, but in Barboza’s case, his unwavering patience—a learned skill, he stresses—is the exact reason he was able to defeat Catterall. Catterall’s super power, if you will, is in his ability to slow fights down and goad his opponents into making mistakes, which some have categorized as “boring.” Matchroom’s promotion of the fight even nodded to this with a tongue-in-cheek promo about how “boring” Catterall was, one airing before the bout itself. Beyond the technical components of Catterall’s approach, on a mental level, that in-ring tedium can lead fighters, who by nature are adrenaline junkies, to get overanxious and fall into the trap.

The gameplan concocted by Barboza’s father was to rely on what they determined was his son’s superior footwork and reach advantage. Barboza Sr. felt that if his son could remain patient and let Catterall come to him, that more often than not he would win the jab battle. With the crowd at the Co-Op Arena in Manchester losing its collective mind during Catterall’s ring introduction, it would have been easy for Barboza to get wrapped up in the emotion of the long-awaited moment, but his father had one final message for him that he whispered in his ear as David Diamante belted out the final syllables: “Slow feet don’t eat.”

“Back in like earlier in my career, you know, I used to stay in the inside a lot because I used to get mad, I used to get hit and I used to say, 'God, I just want to go in there and start fighting,” said Barboza. “Believe it or not, that was really hard to control, you know, because Catterall, there's one point where he hit me a little low, and I've seen the referee, the referee's told us to stop, so I put my hands down and he hit me with two punches and I was like dang! Like, see the ‘back then me,’ I was going right in after the break. But I had tunnel vision, and I had to remember in my head I swear at that moment I said alright, tunnel vision, calm down, relax, game plan.”

Barboza remained locked in amidst highly-competitive rounds that, according to CompuBox, saw eleven rounds in which the fighters were within four landed punches of one another. It was Barboza who stuck it out the best in the exhausting chess match in the eyes of the judges, earning a split decision victory.

The version of Barboza even two fights ago, he admits, might not have been as composed. There was a time when he would go so hard on the heavy bag that he says people would ask his father if he was okay. The only two speeds he knew were fast and faster. But for the last two training camps, which happen to coincide with the two biggest wins of his career, he’s slowed down. All of his work, even simple shadowboxing, is methodical and gameplan-specific with Barboza Sr. taking a hands-on approach and calling out sequences. On weekends during camp, he even takes rest days to focus on recovery, in addition to three weekly ice bath sessions, times the old Barboza might have been using to punish the heavy bag some more.

After all of that hard work, and even harder restraint, Barboza could finally let go. As hard as he tried to hold it in with his small circle in the room, he wept with his title belt in his arms on his locker room couch.

“All this, I could have had (before). Let's be honest, I could have fought Ramirez a long time ago with Top Rank, never happened, you know? I could have, I could have fought Teo (Lopez) when I was with Top Rank, it didn't happen, you know? And now, I'm fighting Catterall on the biggest stage in front of 10,000 plus fans and for the interim belt, hostile territory, they're booing me, you know it's like it was a story that, like man, all that was just in that belt. I just, I just broke down, man, I couldn't, I couldn't hold it,” said Barboza.

Barboza has always learned on a combination of his union ideals and unflappable self-belief. He left his job to go all-in on boxing, even when it meant six months at a time with no income. He opted into a contract for initially less money, then left Top Rank to sign with a new promoter. When it came time to fight for a world title, he went on the road, fighting on a show promoted by someone other than his own promoter. At every turn, he took a risk based on what he felt he was worth, an attribute that’s inspiring and relatable even to his own manager Rick Mirigian.

"He's a very special person, the single biggest thing that stood out to me and still does is how disciplined he is, in and out of ring. That's what stands out aside from his world class skill, he is one of the most disciplined people I have met and worked with," said Mirigian. "I think I relate to many fighters with the way I grew up, but for me, I was a concert promoter who had used my student loan and financial aid check to throw a party while at FSU. So what I can relate to is taking a chance on yourself against all odds."

The betting odds may be against Barboza once more if he gets the fight he truly wants, the aforementioned clash with Teofimo Lopez. The Ring reported a week ago that Lopez’s next bout is being eyed for June or July at Alcatraz by Turki Alalshikh, head of Riyadh Season and chairman of the General Entertainment Authority.

Even if the fight is firmed up immediately, Barboza will at least have a chance to be at home and savor his pancakes, and his victory with his family, unlike his win over Ramirez, which was followed up by a near-instant tip that he’d be fighting Catterall in February, necessitating another camp right away.

Today, and for many days ahead, he’ll eat his breakfast at the very table that was pushed aside for a viewing party last weekend, where his daughter jumped for joy in her Wonder Woman costume as she watched her superhero of a Dad be declared world champion.

“There's no situation, there's no nobody in boxing that could break me down mentally because it's not gonna work, I've been through too much in life,” said Barboza. “It's crazy when you're dealing with it, man, but you know what, I would never ask for a different route. I got this is the hard way. I love it. It's made me the man I am today.”