For NM boxer Rolyn Nez, it's time to get busy 

Get busy, stay busy, keep winning, get noticed: unless you’re an Olympic medalist and the major promoters come running with pen and pact, that’s the formula for success as a professional boxer. 

It’s rarely easy. 

Bloomfield’s Rolyn Nez, among New Mexico’s finest amateur boxers of recent years, has had five bouts in 43 months since turning pro. He’s won all five, three by knockout, so he’s had the keep-winning part of the formula under control. But to get noticed, he’ll need to get busier, and stay that way.

Bout No. 6, a welterweight six-rounder against Santa Fe’s Daniel Gonzalez (5-2, two KOs) is scheduled for Saturday on a Pat Holmes promotion at Ohkay Casino Hotel north of Española. With Holmes back promoting regularly after a 5 1/2-year hiatus — Saturday’s card will be Holmes’ second at Ohkay in three months — Roland Nez, his son’s trainer, is hoping 2026 can be a busier and more productive year than the past 3 1/2. 

For the Nez family, boxing is a way of life. Four of Rolyn’s siblings — Jermaine, Jackson, Laila and Jace — have campaigned in the amateur ranks.

As an amateur, Rolyn Nez, a skilled boxer-puncher, was a state and regional Golden Gloves champion. His style seemed ideal for the transition to the pros. 

The only problem was getting fights. 

Roland Nez said his son, as did fellow Four Corners fighter Elija Martinez, signed at one point with the late Cameron Dunkin, a nationally known manager who earlier had guided the careers of Albuquerque world champions Johnny Tapia and Danny Romero. But, perhaps because the fighters were too young or because Dunkin was too busy, that relationship produced nothing for Nez or Martinez. Dunkin died in January 2024.

Hobbs promoter Isidro Castillo put Rolyn on two of his cards, in Hobbs in April 2022 and in Farmington in September 2024. But Castillo lives in Hobbs and isn’t likely to promote in the Four Corners area on a regular basis, and Hobbs is a seven-hour drive from Bloomfield — hardly insurmountable but hardly ideal. 

A year ago, Rolyn defeated Cruz Becerra by unanimous decision on a card staged at Emerald Queen Casino in Tacoma, Washington. The Nezes thought they might have found a home with promoter Azat Torosyan, but, Roland Nez said in a phone interview, “(Torosyan) lost the contract at that casino.”

Since then, according to boxrec.com, Torosyan has promoted just once — in El Salvador. 

There was a fight in Phoenix in April that fell through, Roland Nez said, minutes before Rolyn was to enter the ring.

“The Arizona commission’s doctor said we weren’t gonna fight because his opponent, when he got his bloodwork done, his doctor only faxed half the paperwork,” the elder Nez said. 

“(Rolyn) was dressed, wrapped up and ready to fight. It got canceled.”

Another fight in Phoenix later in 2025 was scrubbed, Roland Nez said, because Rolyn’s opponent backed out. 

Rolyn fought at the Inn of the Mountain Gods in Mescalero in November 2024. He tentatively planned to fight on another card there a year later, Roland Nez said, “but the promoter said he couldn’t secure a welterweight (opponent) for Rolyn. … There were potential opponents from the East Coast that they found, but the Inn of the Mountain Gods wanted somebody local, and that was that.”

So it goes in the early stages of a professional career, and in that, Rolyn Nez is by no means alone. But the fighter’s father expressed optimism, largely due to the new association with Holmes, that getting busy and staying busy will be an easier task from now on.

Rolyn Nez will need to get busy on Saturday if he’s to improve his record to 6-0. Gonzalez presents as likely the toughest opponent he’ll have faced as a pro. 

The two fought as amateurs years ago, Roland Nez said, Rolyn Nez winning by unanimous decision.