NMAC planning for boxing, MMA return

Big question is when it can happen

Sometime — not today, not tomorrow, not the day after, but sometime — professional combat sports events will return to New Mexico.

Members of the New Mexico Athletic Commission, the state board that regulates combat sports, want to help make that happen.

But, with the COVID-19 pandemic still alive and accompanying protocols still in place, the question is how. And when. “We need to start getting ready for when we do start having events,” chairman Joe Chavez said at Tuesday’s NMAC meeting, held via Cisco WebEx.

Compliance with public health orders, Chavez said, is a given. “But we’re gonna have to have our own kind of rules because of COVID for the fighters and our officials and the people participating . ... We’re probably not going to be doing any fights within the next 60 days, but I want to start getting ready for what we’re going to require of them.”

The most recent pro combatsports event staged in Albuquerque was a boxing card promoted by Santa Fean Pat Holmes at the Marriott Pyramid on Feb. 8, 2020. Since then, planned or hoped-for cards by Holmes, Albuquerque’s Legacy Promotions (brothers Jordan and Aaron Perez) and Hobbs’ Isidro Castillo have been canceled or never left the drawing board.

National and international

promoters, propped up by TV/streaming contracts, gradually began staging cards with no fans in attendance. For local promoters, no fans meant no money and few opportunities for New Mexico fighters.

This spring, in states that have relaxed COVID protocols, boxing and MMA cards with few or no crowd restrictions are in place. There’s a pro boxing card scheduled for April 23 in El Paso; the UFC is going to Jacksonville, Florida on April 24 and to Houston on May 15.

“I think with combat sports heating up again around the country,” said commissioner Jerome O’Connell, “it might be a good idea to see how the UFC does on their East Coast shows, and as more venues are added, to see what we can do.”

What local promoters cannot do, financially, is what the major MMA and boxing promoters have done to successfully stage cards during the pandemic: multiple COVID tests for each participant and days of quarantine in hotel rooms.

Until or unless everyone is vaccinated and COVID-19 is under control, Chavez said, “It’s just something we’re going to have to figure out.”

FINANCIAL MATTERS: The NMAC has lost a major source of revenue the past two years, Chavez said, in not collecting a percentage of pay-per-view revenues. Commission rules require any entity that sells PPV buys in New Mexico to pay up to 5% of its take from those buys, but that hasn’t been happening.

In previous years, NMAC executive director Richard Espinoza said, the commission derived perhaps as much as $80,000 annually from PPV fees.

Chavez said he’ll work with New Mexico Regulation and Licensing in an attempt to find out why those payments have stopped and how to get them started again.

The NMAC did collect a flat fee of $30,000 from the UFC after the February 2020 UFC Fight Night card at the then-Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho, which was streamed on espn+.

THE NMAC: The commission has only three current members: Chavez, an Albuquerque businessman; O’Connell, a Las Cruces attorney; and Vera Jo Bustos, a former college and pro basketball player and coach as well as an author.

A fourth member, Art De La Cruz, left the commission after being appointed to a New Mexico House of Representatives seat in September 2020.

BREEZY IS BACK: Albuquerque and Jackson-Wink MMA welterweight Chris “Breezy” Brown (5-3) is scheduled to face Kelvin Rayford (5-2) Friday on an LFA card in Shawnee, Oklahoma.

Brown last fought in September, losing by split decision to Ignacio Bahamondes on an LFA card in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Friday’s card is scheduled to be streamed on UFC Fight Pass, starting at 7 p.m.

GOLDEN GLOVES: The 2021 New Mexico Golden Gloves amateur boxing tournament is scheduled for June 5-6 at the Belen Community Center.

The registration deadline is May 24. For information, call Ray Baca (505239-0966), Juan Nuñez (505-452-4142) or Bunny Martinez (505-573-1330).