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 News from Around Banderas Bay | March 2008 
Francisco Paco Villanueva Wins Main Event at La Iguana Boxing Card
 Bob Cohen - PVNN
| | Main event winner and owner and manager of the Power Punch gym, Francisco Paco Villanueva after winning in a 4th round KO. | 
| | Referee Armando Tapia raises the hand of Villanueva in the night's final match. | 
| | Co main event winner Adan "El Ojitos" Gamboa after his 8 round victory in a unanimous decision. | 
| | The 8 year olds go at it; the final amateur event of the evening. | 
| | Local Old Town business owners and the promoters of the matches at the pre fight press conference. | | |
Boxing in Puerto Vallarta presented a big card at a new venue this past Saturday night at La Iguana Restaurant Bar in Old Town. Power Punch Gym, El Torito Sports Bar and Corona Extra were the main three sponsors among many more to promote the event named "No Te Rajes." The house was full with about 800 in attendance.
Once the event began at 8 pm, organizers did a superb job moving boxers in and out of the ring after their bouts to be able to produce an evening that included 15 amateur fights and 4 professional bouts. It was chilly and late when the last fight ended at 1 am and the fans left happy.
The amateur fights were all three rounds and each round was 2 minutes. The professional boxers fought the traditional 3 minute rounds and the bouts were from 6 rounds on the under card to 10 rounds for the main event.
The main event was won by Francisco Paco Villanueva, owner and manager of the sponsoring Power Punch Gym in the super welterweight division with a punch to the left side of the head of his opponent from Guanajuato in the 4th round that dropped him to his knees as he stayed down, unable to get back up as the referee counted him out. That ended the marathon 5 hour night of boxing that Puerto Vallarta fighters dominated.
The co-main event was won by Puerto Vallarta's Adan "El Ojitos" Gamboa in an 8 round unanimous decision in the featherweight division. Gamboa, whose eyes always appeared sleepy, (thus the name "Ojitos") fought in a counter punch fight as he answered a barrage of punches from his opponent with effective punches.
Puerto Vallarta professionals made a clean sweep of the 4 pro bouts as Javier Vallarta Zavala won a wild welterweight fight in a close split decision in a 6 round fight and Juan Alberto Gomez out muscled his opponent in the featherweight division with a unanimous 6 round decision.
The amateur fights began with some boxers fighting their first fight and first few competitions in the ring and fell behind 4-1 against the competition that came from Guanajuato, Guadalajara, Tepic and Compostela.
As the amateur fights progressed the boxing quality vastly improved as Vallarta fighters won 8 of the last 10 fights. The last few fighters should be turning professional in their next few bouts.
The final amateur fight featured 8 year old 23 kilo boxers and Puerto Vallarta's Juan Jose Picachu Becerra came out and did an imitation of the Ali shuffle to the cheers of the crowd, but wasn't enough as he lost a decision.
The fighter that received the biggest cheers from the crowd was Kiki Chiquita Gonzalez, who clearly won a unanimous decision. Keep an eye out for this youngster as he will be fighting professionally very soon. There were two bouts that featured 12 year old boxers and the other fights ranged from 15 years old and up.
The evening was a success at the new venue, and we expect to see more boxing cards at La Iguana in the easily accessible Old Town area of Puerto Vallarta. It was well promoted, well handled and the crowd stayed until the end of the main event. |
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