ORLANDO, Fla. — Armani Almestica has a simple approach to every fight.
- Almestica has 17 championships to date
- Qualified for Youth Olympics
- Aims to turn pro within 2 years
"When people step in there with me, I see it like they’re trying to steal from me, or they’re trying to eat off my plate," the 17-year-old boxer said. "So I gotta own it."
For him, boxing is a primal instinct.
“I gotta take them outta there," he said. "That’s what’s mine. They didn’t ask permisison to step in there, that’s my job to take them out of there and get W’s.”
His trainer, Freddy Almestica, agrees.
“He got that breed. And I think he’s really a master for his age,” he said.
Freddy would know. He's also Armani's father. And every day, the two head to the Higher Power Boxing Academy in Orlando to train. So far, the results have produced a teenager with 17 championships to his name, and a recently-qualified youth Olympian.
“I have to help him learn the sport that I know. Boxing," Freddy said. "That was my life. That was really the only thing I know how to do perfectly. And I live with the passion. I live it.“
The older Almestica was a boxing prodigy himself at one time. At 18, he turned professional, but within a few years for reasons both personal and a result of the nature of the sport, he was done fighting. Armani never got to see him fight.
“Because him and my mother broke up before I was born," Armani said. "But when I was with my mom, I was going through some stuff that I knew not a normal kid at my age would go through.”
Armani would spend nights on the street with his mother.
“Sleeping outside. Going to sleep without food. Sleeping in mattresses that have bed bugs in them," he recounted. "Not eating, my mom being gone for months and stuff like that. It was a lot of hard sacrifices I had to hold in myself and stuff like that.”
A little over a decade ago, Freddy would re-enter Armani's life. That's when he decided to raise him the only way he knew he could.
“I didn’t finish it like I was supposed to," Freddy said. "So when my son came in my life, that was the only thing that I can [sp], I show him because I know how to do it.”
So he raised him in the ring, pushing him to be his best. Then the titles began to roll in. And now, Armani sits as the best amateur boxer in the country at his age for light welterweights.
“[Freddy] made it pro and he took the wrong steps. From thereon out, he had me, and that’s the only thing he knew what to teach," Armani said. "So from thereon, I followed on. He wanted me to finish what he couldn’t finish.”
It's the reason why Armani approaches the ring as his territory.
“When you in there, you need to think like that," Freddy said. "Because if you come taking your time in there, you’re going to lose. And at this point, you need to win to be somebody.”
Now, Armani hopes to be somebody. He carries on his family name in the ring, using the nickname "The Legacy" as a way to honor his father and his grandfather. And he's grateful to have been pushed to this point.
“It made me know if I didn’t want to be in that life, I had to be somebody. I had to do something positive," he said. "So I knew that whatever my dad was teaching me was positive. He would tell me, 'this is the right way, this is what I’ve been through. And if you don’t want to go through that, you’re gonna have to do this.' And that was boxing.”