Saturday boxing card featuring CHS grad will not happen

Editor's note: Thursday's edition of the Rio Rancho Observer went to press before the cancellation announcement.

ALBUQUERQUE — There’ll be no fisticuffs at the Pit on Saturday.

Ed Manzanares, the University of New Mexico’s associate athletic director for sports administration, said he was informed by email Tuesday afternoon that Signature Punch Promotions, a Florida-based concern that was to stage a pro boxing card at the Pit, has canceled the increasingly troubled event.

Manzanares, who is also chairman of the New Mexico Athletic Commission, said the email characterized the decision as a postponement and not an outright cancellation.

“We are currently working closely with the New Mexico Athletic Commission to finalize the new schedule and will provide an update as soon as possible,” Signature Punch posted later on Instagram.

But, cancelation or postponement, the outcome for Saturday is the same.

Tickets purchased through UNM’s athletics website, Manzanares said, will be refunded in full. The refunds will be handled electronically, he said, and purchasers should have their money back within 72-96 hours. There is no need to call the UNM ticket office, he said.

Signature Punch, in the person of company president Gary Lewis, formally announced the card Feb. 20 at a news conference in the Pit’s northeast lobby. Veteran MMA fighters Rashad Evans and Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, who were to fight in the main event as first-time boxers, were in attendance.

Also at the news conference were Johnny Tapia Jr. and Nicco Tapia, sons of the late Albuquerque boxing world champion Johnny Tapia, who were to have made their boxing debuts.

The card gradually grew to 13 bouts and 26 fighters, including New Mexicans Josh Torres, Brian Mendoza, Diego Sanchez — an Albuquerque MMA legend planning to make his boxing debut — and Matt Griego-Ortega.

Added to the all-star lineup: Shane Mosley Jr., Fernando Vargas Jr. and Tim Witherspoon Jr., all sons of former world boxing champions.

Trouble, though, was brewing.

On Friday, Jackson and Evans, in separate Instagram posts, announced they were withdrawing from the card — each man citing financial obligations not met by Signature Punch.

On Monday, Torres, Sanchez and the Tapia brothers opted out.

Albuquerque boxing promoter Teresa Tapia, mother of Nicco and Johnny Jr. and Sanchez’s wife, had been working with Signature Punch on the promotion.

Tapia has had financial problems of her own, stemming from a February 2023 card at the Rio Rancho Events Center. A partner in the promotion, she said, had promised to pay the fighters, wrote checks and promptly canceled them, leaving her with complete financial responsibility.

Thus, she said on Monday, her antenna was up when she saw problems developing with the Signature Punch promotion.

“We gave them every opportunity to make things right,” Tapia said.

Until Tuesday afternoon, despite the loss of five fights, Signature Punch was insisting that the card would go on as scheduled. Jody Lewis, a co-promoter with her husband, told the Journal that she had lined up a new opponent for Evans.

Evans, meanwhile, never budged from his stated position that he had opted out.

Mendoza and Griego-Ortega, who unlike their fellow New Mexico fighters had not pulled out and were still hoping to fight, expressed their disappointment on Facebook.

“I’m sorry everyone,” wrote Griego-Ortega, who’d been eager to get back in the ring after rehabbing a fractured right hand suffered during his previous bout on Aug. 10 at Tingley Coliseum.

Mendoza, a Cleveland High School graduate who hasn’t fought in New Mexico since 2017, said his management team was already looking for another opportunity.

None of the 26 boxers originally scheduled for the card had ever fought in the Pit, which hadn’t been the site of a professional boxing card since Johnny Tapia defeated Colombia’s Jorge Eliecer Julio there by unanimous decision on Jan. 8, 2000.

A chance to fight at the Pit was of particular importance to Nicco and Johnny Tapia Jr., who’d attended their celebrated father’s 2012 memorial service there, and for Torres, a former Team Tapia fighter who’d been a pallbearer that day,

Will there be another chance for them and for Signature Punch? That’s unclear, given the turmoil surrounding the promotion and the slow ticket sales, prompted in part by prices New Mexico fight fans aren’t used to paying.

Manzanares said only, “We’re disappointed. We were looking forward to staging an exciting event at the Pit. It just didn‘t work out.”