Empire El Paso card report

By Davis Finger courtesy of fight news

Boxing fans in El Paso were treated to what promises to be one of the biggest “one-two” punches to hit the Sun City in recent years with two separate exciting boxing cards back to back. The main event is undoubtedly going to be the WBA women’s lightweight title fight next weekend featuring local girl Stephanie Han, but fans were treated to a pretty exciting Empire Promotions event this last Saturday that introduced boxing fans to another female fighter who shows signs of being a world class prospect in her own right. For boxing fans in El Paso, February of 2025 may be the month that their city puts itself on the map as one of the boxing capitals of women’s boxing as the talented 18-year old high-school student Ivy Enriquez won a shutout four round decision over the durable journeywoman Karla Valenzuela.

Also featured was the popular welterweight Dewayne Bonds, 147, as he scored a workman like lopsided six round decision over Chihuahua’s Jose Arturo Esquivel, 147, in a fight for the vacant ABF welterweight title. Bonds career has been nothing short of a roller coaster since turning pro in 2015. After getting blown out by Thomas Smith in 2017, losing a decision to Omar Juarez in 2019, and then getting blitzed by Abel Navarrete later that year, most fans in the Southwest closed the book on Bond’s as anything more than as an opponent for young prospects. But Bonds moved up in weight and went on a nine fight winning streak that seemed to put him in line for a possible regional title fight in the near future. But after losing a six round decision to undefeated Eduardo Garcia in Houston in 2022, Bonds saw his stock drop and he found himself back at square one. He remained inactive in 2023 and only had one fight in 2024, so Saturday was very much intended to be an opportunity to shake off some ring rust and get some rounds in, and he couldn’t have found a better opponent for that job than the durable Jose Arturo Esquivel. With a record of 10-8, 2 KOs coming into the fight, and with only one win in the last ten years, few were expecting an upset. But Esquivel was also a durable opponent who had only been stopped once in his career, in his last fight to a world ranked contender in Gary Russell in 2018. And for six rounds Esquivel gave Bonds some solid work as he stalked the local boy but seldom closed the gap. Bonds peppered the Mexican with the jab from the southpaw stance and was able to use the ring to his advantage. By round five it was clear that Esquivel was trailing badly on the scorecards, but although he found the mark a few times in round five and six, he was never able to put together a combination that was able to derail the slick boxing Bonds. After six rounds there were no knockdowns and the scores were automatic as all three judges gave the fight to Bonds (Raul Valencia scored the fight a shutout at 60-54 while Esther Lopez scored the fight 59-55 and James Moreno has the fight a bit closer at 58-56). With the win, Bonds improves to 14-4-1, 8 KOs.

In the co-main event “Poison” Ivy Enriquez, a senior at Bel Air High School in El Paso, made a statement as she dominated 33-year old veteran Karla Valenzuela Garcia, winning a four round shutout decision. Garcia, 125, was not expected to win the fight, but with over 41-fights on her resume and a reputation for durability, most were expecting the Durango, Mexico native to dig into her veteran bag of tricks and show “Poison” Ivy something she hadn’t seen before. But Enriquez, a former amateur standout who was ranked in the top five as an amateur by USA boxing in 2022, had little trouble with the veteran and simply outclassed her from the opening bell. Perhaps most noteworthy, Enriquez never got reckless and wild, despite being in total control. She dominated with lightning fast combinations, but avoided the rookie mistake of throwing caution to the wind against a vastly outmatched opponent. All three judges scored the fight 40-36 for the debuting 18-year old, who may be fighting for a world title in the very near future. Garcia sees her record fall to 3-36-3, 1 KO.

In an intriguing undercard fight, super middleweight Raiko Santana, 167.5, won a six round split decision over Marquis Moore, 167.5. Santana had one of the most unusual career arcs in recent memory, the former Cuban standout elected to kick off his professional career in Russia where he lost his professional debut to a Russian fighter by way of split decision. Three wins followed, with two of them being in Russia and the other being in Estonia, before he would lose another fight in Russia to an undefeated Russian prospect named Ravshan Ergashev. After that loss Santana decided that fighting Russian prospects in Russia was perhaps not the best career path for a former Cuban standout and he decided to head back to the Western Hemisphere to resume his career. But rather than fight out of Miami, he would follow the footsteps of the legendary Cuban-Mexican boxer Jose Napoles and fight out of Mexico. Santana would fight his next seven fights in Mexico before he finally fought for the first time in the United States in 2022 (in Florida). A win over undefeated Joseph Garcia had boxing insiders reevaluating the hard-luck Cuban boxer, and although Santana lost a close decision to undefeated Daniel Blancas on the undercard of the David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade in Las Vegas in 2023, he scored a knockdown over the prospect and the loss did little to derail his momentum.

But contenders are not built by collecting losses, regardless of how good a fighter may look in those losses. He needed a win over a fellow fringe prospect/contender to kick start his career and break into the rankings.

Enter Marquis Moore, another young fighter who looked the part of a borderline prospect (who lost only two fights by way of decision to undefeated prospects) who was in desperate need of a win to get over that hump and make a case for a ranking. It was an exceptionally matched fight between two hungry fighters who had everything to gain, and everything to lose, in El Paso.

And as is sometimes the case when two talented and evenly matched fighters square off, it ended up being a game of inches and an entertaining chess match. Santana boxed well, but Moore found a home for his left hook at times, and it was clear after six rounds of good action that the fight was going to be razor thin.

In the end however, the Cuban would emerge with the decision as judges Esther Lopez and Raul Valencia gave him the edge by scores of 58-56 and 59-55 respectively. Judge Travis Brown had the fight scored for Moore by a score of 58-56. With the win Santana sees his record improve to 12-4, 6 KOs while Moore falls to 11-3, 7 KOs.

Rounding off the undercard, New Mexico’s Elijah Sweat, 161, won a six round unanimous decision over Houston’s DePriest Johnson, 155. Both men are better than their records would indicate, but Sweat was clearly the better man on Saturday night. Sweat is a much improved fighter than the one who was stopped in his second professional fight back in 2023 in the cruiserweight division. With the win Sweat improves to 5-4, 1 KO while Johnson falls to 2-5, 0 KOs. Two judges scored the fight 58-56 for Sweat while the third scored it for Sweat by a score of 59-55.

In another six round affair, local boy Alec McGee won a six round split decision over journeyman Kevin Ronquillo Nunez of Durango, Mexico. There were no knockdowns after six, and although it appeared that McGee did enough to win the decision, one of the three judges was nonetheless impressed with the Mexican’s pressure. Esther Lopez scored the fight for Ronquillo by a score of 58-56. However, she was overruled by Travis Brown and Raul Valencia, who both scored it for McGee by a score of 58-56. With the win McGee sees his record improve to 12-2-1, 1 KO while Ronquillo sees his record fall to 10-11-1, 2 KOs.

In a heavyweight fight, debuting Manuel Villalobos scored a third round TKO over Arizona’s Joshua Bahe. Bahe now sees his record stand at 0-2 with both losses coming by way of knockout. In a cruiserweight fight, undefeated Joshua Ramirez, 191, went the distance for the first time as he won a four round decision over Daniel Flores Garcia of Albuquerque. There were no knockdowns but Ramirez was in complete control over the four round fight. With the win Ramirez improved to 3-0, 2 KOs while Flores Garcia saw his record drop to 3-10, 2 KOs. Also on the card, Terrance Lee of El Paso and Genesis Wynn of Denver fought to a four round majority draw in a junior welterweight fight. Wynn’s record now stands at 2-6-1, 1 KO while Lee sees his record now stand at 2-2-1, 1 KO.

For boxing fans in El Paso, the emergence of both Ivy Enriquez and Empire Promotions gives hope for an exciting future of events in the Sun City. Empire Promotions seem to have a handful of good ticket sellers including Enriquez and McGee, and no shortage of talented fighters in Enriquez, McGee, Bonds, and Santana. The UTEP Memorial Gym, with a capacity of 5,200 is an exceptional venue for the development of future events, and with the next Empire Promotions show slated for May 12th, there is no question that 2025 should continue to be a big year for boxing in El Paso