'Working against us:' Promoter, trainer take jabs at New Mexico Athletic Commission

Ultimately, fans got what most of them had come to see: Albuquerque’s Abraham Perez, back in the ring, winning and looking great in doing so after having nearly drowned in his family’s swimming pool eight months before.

Not everyone, however, left the Embassy Suites happy after a Legacy Promotions professional boxing card on April 19. Particularly displeased were Aaron Perez, co-promoter of the card, and Steve Garcia, father and trainer of Albuquerque boxer Jordanne Garcia.

The target of their ire: The New Mexico Athletic Commission, the regulatory body tasked with overseeing professional combat sports under the umbrella of the New Mexico Regulation & Licensing Department.

“They’re a joke; put it that way,” Garcia said during a phone interview with the Journal. “They don’t know what they’re doing.”

“It’s just ridiculous,” said Perez, who’s been staging pro boxing events in New Mexico since 2015. “It’s just crazy, people that don’t know what’s going on, trying to do combat sports. It’s just not right.”

So, what happened that night, and at the weigh-in the previous day, that so angered Perez and Garcia?

It was more a case of what didn’t happen. Two of seven bouts originally scheduled on the card, one involving Garcia’s daughter, Jordanne, were not approved by the commission because one fighter scheduled to compete in each of those bouts weighed in on Friday well above their contracted weights. Jordanne Garcia weighed in nine or 10 pounds heavy.

Then, on Saturday, the commission did not approve an exhibition bout that would have numerically replaced one of the bouts that had been disapproved on Friday.

In those actions, commissioner Stephanie Jaramillo said in a statement relayed to the Journal through the Regulation and Licensing Department, the NMAC acted in accordance with its rules or statutes. And it is clear that if Jordanne Garcia had weighed in at or even near the weight she was required by contract to meet, her bout against Chicago’s Olivia Curry would have gone on as scheduled.

But this, Perez said, was not the New Mexico Athletic Commission he’d worked with in the past.

“They’re supposed to work with us,” he said. “They were kind of working against us.”

Commissioners are not paid for their work and serve voluntarily at the pleasure of the governor.

With Jordanne Garcia and three other fighters failing to make their contracted weights, April 19 was a bad time for the commission to be without its longtime executive director. This was the NMAC’s first boxing card in more than a decade conducted without the knowledge and expertise of Richard Espinoza.

Espinoza announced at the NMAC’s March meeting that he had been promoted to a new job within the RLD.

A new executive director has not yet been named.

Typically, though the ultimate decision has always rested with the commissioners, it has been Espinoza who dealt with issues created by fighters’ failure to make weight.

“One thing I did say to a couple of people (that) night is, ‘Guys, let us get through this transition a little bit’,” NMAC chairman Ed Manzanares told the Journal in a phone interview. “When you lose a guy (who’s been) kind of a one-stop-shop for 15 years, or however long Richard’s done it, there’s some growing pains with that transition.

“We kind of lost our quarterback.”

So, then, what precisely were Perez and Garcia’s problems with the commission?

In the aftermath, four issues stood out.

Complaint 1

The commission did not allow the bout between Curry and Garcia to take place, even though Curry had agreed to accept the fight at a weight above the contracted 168 pounds and Jordanne Garcia had agreed to forfeit to Curry a percentage of her contracted pay.

Such arrangements had been made many times by the commission in the past — though it is unusual for a fighter to weigh in as much as nine pounds overweight, as Jordanne Garcia did on this occasion, and still be allowed to fight.

Another bout, between Santa Fe’s Eduardo Piñon and Albuquerque’s Austin Lewis, fell by the wayside when Lewis weighed above the contracted weight on Friday, left the premises and did not return. Perez said later he believed Lewis had fallen ill.

And El Paso’s Gabriel Gutierrez, who was scheduled to face Albuquerque’s Xavier Madrid, also came in significantly heavy. Gutierrez shed a few pounds and weighed in again, Perez said, but was still over the contracted weight. The commission did not approve the bout.

Suddenly, Legacy’s seven-bout card, consisting of 34 scheduled rounds, had shrunk to four bouts and 22 rounds. The entire card was in danger of being scrapped, since NMAC rules call for a minimum of 26 rounds for approval.

The commission did permit Legacy to bring in Portland, Oregon, boxer Derick Bartlemay on the day of the fight card as an emergency replacement for Gutierrez. With Madrid’s fight rescued, the total of rounds was back to 26 and the card was on.

Complaint 2

An exhibition bout between Piñon (who was to have made his pro debut) and Hobbs amateur Isaiah Chavez, intended to have preceded the pro card, was not permitted.

“I said, ‘You know what, this kid (Piñon) sold a lot of tickets.’” Perez said. “Let’s get him an exhibition.’”

Commissioners Manzanares and Jaramillo, Perez said, “went back and forth” on whether the exhibition could happen. The commission decided against allowing it.

Manzanares said later that, exhibition or no exhibition, both combatants needed to be licensed by the commission and have the necessary bloodwork done. Chavez’s amateur status was a concern. There was no “back and forth“ regarding that decision, Manzanares said.

Complaint 3

Steve Garcia was adamant that a scheduled six-round co-main event between Albuquerque’s Fidel Maldonado Jr. and Mexico’s German Ivan Meraz should have been allowed to continue after a third-round clash of heads caused a cut below Meraz’s right eye. Instead, the bout came to an unsatisfying conclusion, ruled no contest, 37 seconds into the third round.

Garcia, while acknowledging he hadn’t heard a conversation between the ring physician and referee Rocky Burke, said he believed the doctor had said it was OK for Meraz to continue but was overruled by the commission.

That was not the case, Burke told the Journal in a phone interview.

At first inspection, Burke said, the cut didn’t appear serious enough to merit stopping the fight. But when the ring doctor lifted up a layer of skin near Meraz’s cheekbone, he and Burke saw a deep gash.

“Both of us said, ‘No, man, this has got to stop right now.’”

Burke then talked to commission members — not to get their opinion, he said, but to inform them of his decision.

“I don’t know why there’s any question about anything,” he said. “I mean, it was plain and simple.”

Complaint 4

Perez and Steve Garcia were particularly angry with Jaramillo, who was the designated commissioner in charge for the Legacy promotion and carried out the duties that normally would have fallen to the executive director.

“She wasn’t professional,” Perez said.

“She’s very rude,” Steve Garcia said. “She talked to everybody like we were trash.”

In a brief response relayed through RLD, Jaramillo said she disagreed with how her behavior and conduct were being characterized.

In the aftermath, Perez and Hobbs promoter/matchmaker Isidro Castillo, who supplied Chavez for the exhibition bout that was rejected by the commission, said in the wake of the April 19 card they no longer wish to promote cards overseen by the NMAC. Their promotional companies have been by far the most active in the state in recent years.

Other options in New Mexico are limited, but they exist.

In 2019, a Legacy Promotions card was staged at Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino, overseen by the Pueblo of Pojoaque Athletic Commission.

In 2022, Abraham Perez fought at the Inn of the Mountain Gods in Mescalero, A card overseen by a representative of the Mohegan Tribal Commission of Connecticut.

Manzanares, though, said he believes the situation can be resolved.

“Hopefully,” he said, “we’ll just learn from everything and get better and better.”