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Featured fighters Ricardo “Tato” Lamas of Brownsville and Roberto “La Amenaza” Garcia of Weslaco enjoyed successful outings fighting in front of their Rio Grande Valley fans at Saturday’s STFC boxing show at Boggus Ford Events Center in Pharr.
Their bouts marked a homecoming of sorts.
Lamas, a native of Matamoros who fights out of Brownsville, recently returned from a three-month stay in Mexico City, where he recuperated from a right hand injury and worked with world-class trainer Ignacio Beristain, a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Fighting in Saturday’s main event with Beristain in his corner, Lamas (9-0, eight knockouts) won his welterweight bout by dispatching Alberto Navarro (3-12-3, one KO) of Kingsville via technical knockout at the end of the first round.
A strong left punch to the body by Lamas appeared to jolt Navarro, and he went down a few seconds later, before the bell sounded to end the opening round. Navarro struggled to get up by the count of eight and then told the referee he couldn’t continue, so the fight was halted.
“I didn’t think that punch was going to end it,” Lamas said. “He’s a strong fighter, and I thought he was going to get up. He came to fight, so I thought it was going to go more rounds, but all my training in Mexico City with one of the best trainers in the world showed in that one round.
“People may say it’s a (relatively easy) first-round knockout, but they don’t see the three months of hard work I had in Mexico City,” Lamas added. “It was very hard work every day.”
While Garcia continues to live in Weslaco, most of his recent fights have been on television from such locations as Chicago and Miami. Saturday was his first Valley ring appearance in nearly three years.
“La Amenaza” (38-3, 23 KOs) prevailed decisively in the co-main event on a six-round unanimous decision (60-54, 60-54, 60-54) against super welterweight opponent Santos Benavides (25-10-2, 19 KOs), a southpaw and native of Nicaragua who fights out of San Antonio.
“They just told me about this fight 13 days ago and we took it,” said Garcia, whose most recent bout prior to Saturday was April 24, 2015, in Chicago. “I said, ‘I can do it, I’m fine. Let’s jump on it.’
“It’s beautiful to fight in the Valley again,” Garcia added. “I felt the love of the people. I’ve been asked for a couple of years now when I would be fighting locally again. It’s always good to come back and kind of regroup. They can’t all be big TV fights on ESPN or Spike TV.”
Other winners on the well-attended card included Japanese lightweight Shoki Sakai, McAllen middleweight Benito Rios and Weslaco super bantamweight Brandon Lee Figueroa.
Fighting out of Mexico City and with Beristain in his corner, Sakai (21-5, 13 KOs) won an eight-round unanimous decision (77-75, 78-74, 78-74) against El Paso’s Carlos Villa (11-3-1, six KOs). Rios (3-0, three KOs) knocked out Harlingen’s Jorge Cortez (0-1), also a mixed martial arts fighter, in the second round. Figueroa (6-0, five KOs) stopped Jahaziel Vasquez Alvarez of Saltillo, Mexico, in the second round as well.
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess