History

Life

He wasn’t sure what his parents were thinking when they scrawled “Morgan” on his birth certificate that day in Cleveland Metro Hospital when his mom pushed him out of her birth canal. It might have been the drugs she was on. It might have been the 40 in his dad’s hand. Does it matter? In the end the little black baby was given the name Morgan, and that was that.

Morgan grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Some people think that’s just a saying, wrong side of the tracks, like there’s something more than a physical divide that keeps the haves on one side and the have nots on the other. In East Cleveland, near 98th and St. Clair, it’s a reality. A literal thing. If you get off Interstate 90 on Eddy Road and make a left, you’re golden. Make a right and you’re in trouble. It’ll put you smack dab in the middle of the ghetto. On one side there’s multimillion dollar homes, gated communities, lake front property. Across the tracks and over the bridge that spans I-90, there’s a slum. Shootings. Gang activity. It’s a place where you shouldn’t stop your car. The advice given to little white girls is “if someone rolls up behind you on that street, even if they hit your car, just keep driving. Don’t stop for anyone. Blow through the red lights. Let the cops pull you over; a ticket is the better than the alternative.”

A little black boy with a name like Morgan doesn’t stand a chance in a place like that. It’s a wonder his dad was at his birth at all, given the statistics, but his dad’s presence didn’t last long in his life. He was shot when Morgan was five years old when he fled the scene of a different crime, pockets stuffed with cocaine. The cocaine was recovered by the rival drug slinger, the body was recovered by police, and Morgan’s mom recovered from the loss of her long time partner when she started knocking back enough alcohol to numb even the worst of it.

All this to say that Morgan didn’t have an easy childhood. No dad, boozehound mom, and a name like Morgan. Who needs enemies when you’ve got a story like that?

He broke his nose for the first time when he was six. Kindergarten. He was older than the other kids, held back for his inability to read, and at recess a second grader called him stupid. He swung. The other boy swung. Morgan’s nose snapped under the pressure of the blow. It wasn’t the last time he’d break his nose in a fight, but it was the first time he felt the freedom that came with fighting. The rush of adrenaline. The desperate survival instinct kicking in. Blood dripped down his face and he didn’t care; he brawled. He put everything he had into it. Every time he’d seen his dad beat his mom. Every time he’d watched the cops beat his neighbors. Every time his mom swung on him. Rage. Desperation.

He won that fight, broken nose and all. The other boy’s face was nothing but a bloody pulp by the time he was pulled off, still kicking and screaming and flailing. He was suspended. He didn’t care. His mom didn’t care.

He’d tasted freedom.

Fighting was his ticket out of the slums. He’d seen people lauded with praise for fighting on TV. Boxers win and money changes hands. It practically rains down on them. He reasoned that if he trained hard enough, if he fought well enough, he’d make enough to skip from one side of the tracks to the other.

He joined a gym and learned to box. He fought at school. He fought in underground rings. He joined the wrestling team to learn to grapple. He biked across down to watch the martial arts teacher show the white kids how to strike. Aikido. JiuJitsu. Kickboxing. He was a power house, his body a steel temple.

By the time he was 16 Morgan had drawn the attention of a number of trainers with his wins in the amateur and underground rings. He signed with a trainer and spent all of his considerable free time training in the gym with other fighting legends like Stipe Miocic, Forrest “The Meat Cleaver” Petz, and Jessica “Evil” Eye. At eighteen he joined the official team as Morgan “Haymaker” Hastings.

Ghouling

Morgan was easy pickings for the domitor that eventually cornered him. All she had to do was smile at him, make some noise about how she admired his form, and tell him that she had a better offer for him than the paltry sum he was making in the little leagues. Didn’t he want to be a world champ?

She could show him how, she promised, and that was that. She bought him out of the contract he was in with his current team and ghouled him that very night. He didn’t mind that he was on the bottom rung. He enjoyed the speed, the strength, the new ability he’d been given to stand up to blows that would fell an ordinary man. So he had to kill a guy sometimes, or jump in new members; so what? What’s that compared to greatness?

In 2014 the circuit took him to New Orleans and he caught the eye of a local millionaire, Aaron Eckhart. Eckhart placed a bet on him to win against the reigning world champ and won millions. The gambling addict knew a good thing when he saw it, and he promptly made a wager with the ghoul’s domitor that ended in an exchange of ownership.

Morgan has only gotten stronger and faster since then, and under his new domitor’s tutelage he’s even expressed an interest in poker. Big guys like him are often underestimated at the table, which he uses to his every advantage. He might not be the smartest guy at the table, but he’s still pretty quick on the uptake.