A huge test and national stage for Leo
Albuquerque fighter gets his first shot at a pro title
Through seven years and 18 professional boxing matches, Albuquerque native Angelo Leo has passed every test.
Saturday in Atlanta, he’ll fight for his first pro title.
Leo (18-0, eight knockouts) is matched against Mexico’s César Juárez (25-7, 19 KOs) in a 12-round super bantamweight main event on a card co-promoted by Mayweather Promotions — Leo is a Mayweather contract fighter — and TGB Promotions. The vacant World Boxing Organization Latino title is at stake. It is Leo’s first scheduled 12-rounder. The card is scheduled to be telecast on Showtime.
It’s a high-risk, high-reward fight for the 25-year-old Leo, an Atrisco Heritage graduate who lives and trains in Las Vegas, Nevada. Juárez’s résumé strongly suggests he’s the best opponent Leo has faced.
The Mexico City native has victories over boxers who entered the ring with records of 18-3, 20-3 and 26-0. Juárez is 8-2 in his last 10 fights, his only losses coming to former WBO super bantamweight champion Isaac Dogboe (20-2, 14 KOs) and
current IBF interim champion Ryosuke Iwasa (27-3, 17 KOs).
Stiff competition, though, is nothing new for Leo. Since he signed with Mayweather Promotions in 2017, he’s 8-0. Those foes have a cumulative record of 149-44-4.
CHRISTMAS COATS: On Monday, UFC light heavyweight champion and Albuquerque resident Jon Jones gave away some 600 winter coats he’d purchased to those in need at the Steelbridge Resource Center in the North Valley.
It was his way of giving back, he said on social media, to the community in which he’s lived since coming here to train at Jackson-Wink MMA.
“My way of saying thanks to the beautiful city of Albuquerque for showing me love over the years,” he tweeted.
Jones (25-1), in the estimation of many the world’s best MMA fighter, is scheduled to defend his title on Feb. 8 in Houston against Dominick Reyes (12-0).
NMSHOF: As announced on Saturday, Albuquerque’s Danny Romero and Holly Holm will be inducted into the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame at the organization’s annual banquet on April 5.
Romero won five Silver Gloves amateur boxing titles and compiled a 45-2-2 pro record with 38 knockouts. He was named the sport’s hardest pound-forpound puncher after his demolition of Colombia’s Harold Grey at the Pit in 1996. He won world titles at 112 and 115 pounds. He retired in 2006.
Romero now operates Hideout Boxing Club in Albuquerque, which has evolved into a concern more focused on helping at-risk kids than on actually training boxers.
Holm compiled a 32-2-3 (nine KOs) record as a professional boxer and won multiple world titles in three weight classes (140, 147, 154). After leaving the boxing ring for MMA in 2013, she made UFC history with her stunning upset of the seemingly unbeatable Ronda Rousey for the UFC bantamweight title in 2015.
Holm is scheduled to return to the Octagon on Jan. 18 in Las Vegas in a rematch with Raquel Pennington, whom Holm defeated by split decision in her UFC debut.
Holm and Romero are the fourth and fifth boxers to be inducted into the NMSHOF, following the late Bob Foster (1974), the late Jim Cleary (1976) and the late Johnny Tapia (2017).
Cleary, better known locally as a boxing referee, was an Olympic Trials finalist in 1936 and fought professionally as well.
Holm is the first MMA fighter to be so honored.