While Morini was born in Piha, he grew up on his family\u2019s farm in Matamata and found his way to boxing by chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was always a pretty rough kid, I played league most of my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad thought it would be a good idea that I got in the ring and kind of channelled my aggressive tendencies into boxing.\u201d<\/p>\n
After moving to Australia for a short time, Morini returned to New Zealand, settling in Auckland, where his father, Moreno, introduced him to the Peach family.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy dad just messaged Isaac one time, and [Isaac] said, \u2018Bring him along\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow he could never get rid of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morini started competing as an amateur boxer in the cadet division at the age of 13.<\/p>\n
Throughout his amateur career, he has become a three-time New Zealand national amateur champion across the junior and youth divisions.<\/p>\n
Morini has also won multiple Golden Gloves championships and the 2023 Oceanic Championships.<\/p>\n
Morini said it was in the amateurs that he really fell in love with boxing, though he doesn\u2019t have an interest in competing at the Commonwealth Games or the Olympics.<\/p>\n
\u201c[I] reckon the pro scene really suits my style a lot more, over 10 rounds, really honing into my craft, trying to get that job done, and get those knockouts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Through training at Peach Boxing under Isaac and Alina, Morini has been training alongside a range of top boxers, including world title contender David Light, IBO World Super Bantamweight champion Mea Motu, Jerome Pampellone, and Commonwealth Games representative Erin Walsh.<\/p>\n
Sonny Morini started competing as an amateur boxer in the cadet division at the age of 13. He is pictured with his trainer and manager Isaac Peach. Photo \/ Peach Boxing<\/p>\n
Morini has already sparred with Pampellone, who was a challenging partner, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI [have] been around quite a few people at this gym, but Jerome was definitely a tricky one, because his accuracy and speed and his all-around ability were scary.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morini is currently undefeated with 13 wins and 11 of those wins coming by way of KO.<\/p>\n
He holds two titles, the New Zealand national (PBCNZ version) Welterweight title and Pacific (PBCNZ version) Welterweight title, and has fought abroad already, including in Thailand and Fiji.<\/p>\n
Morini said his favourite moments of his professional career so far were the big wins.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy debut was big for me, I\u2019ve got two belts now, my first belt felt like a little kid on Christmas, and the second one was Christmas again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sonny Morini holds two titles, the New Zealand national (PBCNZ version) Welterweight title and Pacific (PBCNZ version) Welterweight title. Photo \/ Peach Boxing<\/p>\n
Whenever he fights, he has an entourage coming to see him ringside: his family and friends, of course, but Morini said he also noticed a bit of a fan base.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery now and again, I see people I don\u2019t personally know who are following my journey, and I\u2019m just all around grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Looking ahead, Morini already has big goals: becoming a world champion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt always has been and always will be a world title.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve reached the top with this gym [as shown by Light\u2019s and Motu\u2019s success], so I\u2019m more than confident in my ability to win a world title.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, he is putting all his time and energy into the fight against Fawcett, as the winner of the fight could potentially be ranked in one of the four major sanctioning bodies.<\/p>\n
Morini is currently in Australia as the sparring partner for former IBF World Super Lightweight champion Liam Paro, as Paro prepares for his IBF World Welterweight title fight in June.<\/p>\n
Morini v Fawcett will take place on August 26, on the Hussain v Brubaker undercard at The William Inglis Hotel, Warwick Farm, in Australia.<\/p>\n
The event will be streamed live on ESPN New Zealand and Disney+.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Watt is a retired boxing judge and New Zealand boxing writer with a decade of experience. Watt has also been BoxRec\u2019s New Zealand record-keeper since 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While Morini was born in Piha, he grew up on his family\u2019s farm in Matamata and found his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[1466,8845,64,63,81,16485,802,38326,8813,8846,338777,1913,16371,25101,129780,33371,257630,677,134619,107257,85,10965,319,82482],"class_list":["post-694657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-about","tag-across","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian","tag-boxer","tag-boxing","tag-break","tag-champion","tag-ditch","tag-fawcett","tag-fight","tag-into","tag-jason","tag-leagues","tag-matamata","tag-morini","tag-oceania","tag-prepares","tag-sonny","tag-sports","tag-take","tag-to","tag-wba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}