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
  1. "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.
  2. "Oxnard Expected to Rebuild Old Boxing Club in La Colonia," Los Angeles Times, June 21, 1994.
  3. "READY TO RUMBLE : La Colonia Holding a Full House," Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1996.
  4. "Rising boxing star Victor Ortiz started at bottom," USA Today, June 22, 2009.
  5. "A Friend in Need," Los Angeles Times, January 18, 2001.
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