La Colonia Youth Boxing Club
La Colonia Youth Boxing Club is a boxing gym on 1st Street in La Colonia, a neighborhood in Oxnard, California. Notable Mexican American boxers train at the gym and future boxers are also brought up there.[1][2]
Gym
The gym is a place where members of the community can train and box. It is complete with punching bags, workout machines, lockers, bathrooms, weight sets, speed bags, and a ring. The owners and trainers of the gym take young boxers to amateur fights throughout southern California to compete against similar gyms.[3]
Notable fighters
It has produced such notable Mexican American fighters as Fernando Vargas, Robert Garcia, Miguel Angel Garcia, Victor Ortíz, and Brandon Rios. Robert Garcia, a former IBF World Champion, is the head trainer. His father Eduardo Garcia is a former amateur boxer and is also a trainer.[1]
Fernando Vargas, a former resident of La Colonia, is still a regular fixture at the gym. Victor Ortíz trained at the gym after moving to Oxnard from Garden City.[4] Daniel Cervantes, junior flyweight champion Brian Viloria, and Mia St. John have trained there.[5]
References
- ^ a b "A Ring of Dreams Goes Home to the Old Neighborhood : Community: La Colonia Boxing Club returns to the site where some members' ambitions first took root," Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1995.
- ^ "Oxnard Expected to Rebuild Old Boxing Club in La Colonia," Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1994.
- ^ "READY TO RUMBLE : La Colonia Holding a Full House," Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1996.
- ^ "Rising boxing star Victor Ortiz started at bottom," USA Today, June 22, 2009.
- ^ "A Friend in Need," Los Angeles Times, January 18, 2001.