Boxing in the Garden -
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Boxing in the Garden
Perhaps you have noticed the building across the street from Lamar School on Fordyce and 12th. It’s an older building, past home for Allen’s Grocery store and later a tortilla factory. The modern use has nothing to do with food. It is the home of the Kingsville Boxing Club and Team Solid Knockout. It is the 12th Street Gym.
This is the dream of Jaime Cantú, owner and head coach. The Gym is a training center for champions including the current Texas State Heavyweight boxing champion, Homero “El Oso” Fonseca. It is also a welcoming place for children to come and exercise and learn about the sport of boxing.
Mr. Cantú is actively working to revive a Kingsville tradition, boxing. He and his organization are responsible for the September 2009 professional boxing match out at the J. K. Northway as well as the Amateur tournament in November at the KC Hall. Boxing has a long history in our community and several well known boxers hail from Kingsville.
Local folks can think back to remember the El Jardin restaurant, the delicious place that burned down a couple years back? Well, El Jardin used to be much more than just a great place for dinner. El Jardin translates to the Garden, and it sported an open air arena which was used for Saturday night fights back in the 1950’s. Between 1953 and 1954 there were three professional boxing events there, also several professional wrestling matches. One of my sources remembers attending the Saturday night fights.
Boxing seemed to be a pretty popular event back then. From our small community El Jardin would pull in 400 to 800 fans for an event. Local fighters such as Calvin Rayes, and Navy boxers such as Paul Estell would take on out of town fighters for the thrill of local crowds.
It’s a risk putting on an event in an open air arena. Such was the case for one of El Jardin’s fight nights in August of 1953. It was a dreary day and a light drizzle, lasting about 30 minutes, wetted the ring canvas enough for the main event. Johnny McCray of San Antonio refused to do battle. The loyal fans were in for disappointment when the undefeated welterweight McCray refused to get his feet wet. The promoter offered fans their money back, but only about 25 people left. The rest stayed in the damp weather to see the remainder of the matches.
Stop by the 1904 Kingsville Train Depot Museum and share your boxing memories.