Unanimous decision: Perez, Almager a committed couple

He was good-looking, had a nice smile, and he was a boxer. Megan Almager could see all that.

But who was he, really?

She was pretty, a devoted mom to her two sons from a previous relationship, and she was into combat sports — a wrestling coach, in fact. Abraham Perez could see all that.

But who was she, really?

Asked and answered.

As Albuquerque’s Perez prepares for his bout against Mexico’s Adrian Ibarra on Friday, the main event of a pro boxing card at the Kiva Auditorium, he knows Almager will be in his corner — not physically, but in the sense that really matters — that night and for many to come.

And as Almager watches Perez match blows and tactics with Ibarra, she knows they’ll go home together afterward — that night and for many to come.

For Perez, 26, sharing a home with a partner is a new experience. He’d been in relationships before, he said during a recent interview at an Old Town coffee house, but had never really felt a need or desire for a long-term commitment.

Now, he said, is the time.

He and Almager met at Albuquerque’s FIT-NHB gym, where he was getting in some sparring and she was coaching her sons and other kids with Lockjaw Junior Wrestling.

“She said ‘Hi,’” he recalled. “From there, it took off.”

They were just friends, not partners, in August 2024 when Perez nearly drowned in his family’s pool — having lost consciousness while doing breathing-control exercises in preparation for a bout. He’d been in a coma for three days, hospitalized for more than a week.

Some time later, Almager saw Perez in a television interview, speaking almost matter-of-factly about having almost died. And, yes, he’d been back in the pool.

“I cried,” she said. “It broke my heart to know that he went through something like that. … We were talking about the first time he got back into the pool. That’s something that, after people go through such a life-altering thing, a lot of people won’t go back.

“He was already a good person, but (that experience) made him even better. He touches more lives.”

In past relationships, Perez sometimes had wondered. Was it Abraham the person this woman was interested in, or was it Abraham Perez, world-traveling amateur boxing champion and unbeaten, fast-rising pro with a promising future?

Such doubts involving Almager, if present all, quickly disappeared. Back home in Seminole, Texas, she’d been an athlete — swimming, soccer, softball, basketball.

“I wanted to box,” she said, “but I wasn’t allowed to.”

Perez had seen her at FIT-NHB, coaching her kids and others. She was older than he, focused, mature. This was no star-struck groupie.

On their first date, they’d gone bowling and reserved a lane for two hours. They’d spent so much time talking that they hadn’t finished a single game before their time was up.

“It was the most fun,” Almager said, “and it felt like he was my best friend.”

In Almager, Perez found who he’d been looking for — even if, before they met, he hadn’t even been looking.

“Her morals are there,” he said. “She’s good with kids, too. … She also motivates me to fast-forward on what I do.”

Perez’s goals, Almager said, professionally and personally, “aligned with mine. One subtle thing for me, I told him from the start, I’m a Christian. … He is as well.

“Everything that I’d prayed for and wanted, he became even better.”

Perez is sharing the couple’s South Valley home not just with Almager but with her two sons. It is not, he said, the culture shock one might imagine.

The home he grew up in, he said, is a revolving door of extended family members of all ages. “The kids, my cousins … They’re around the age her boys are right now.”

Perez fights at the flyweight limit of 112 pounds, which means eating right is important — especially as a fight approaches.

Again, it’s a perfect match.

“My boys (as wrestlers) have to cut weight,” Almager said, “so the food in the house kind of remains the same. Fruits, vegetables, chicken, eggs… It’s a lifestyle.”

Life partners, too, they both say.

“She’s a lifer with me,” Perez said, ”already.”