It’s been a long time since veteran boxing promoter Pat Holmes has brought a card to Northern New Mexico — or anywhere for that matter.
Holmes used to bring loaded fight nights regularly to the North before the pandemic, but after a flurry of three highly successful shows in a couple of months in early 2020 in New Mexico and nationally, COVID settled in, shutting everything down.
“The first week in March (2020), it was slammed and all of sudden, we got the announcement for COVID,” Holmes recalled. “We thought it was going to be for two or three weeks, maybe a month. Then I lost my dad that year in November and that was the biggest thing to me. He was always there.”
So Holmes put away his love for the sport and focused on other things.
“When that happened, I didn’t like the idea of when boxing started going on, having to wear a mask. That wasn’t boxing to me and it was a reminder to me that was why I lost my dad,” he said. “So I let it go and turned the page for a while.”
But the lure of the ring was too great, Holmes said, and he felt that the time was right for him to get back to it and pay homage to his father at the same time.
“As time went on, my family and my wife, we started thinking about doing this again,” he said. “Everybody was asking me when they’d see me in the community, at the store or at a restaurant, when is the next fight going to be?”
Well, now Holmes has the answer: soon.
“We haven’t done anything up North at the casinos since before COVID,” he said. “We’re back. This is our return. My dad was always there for the fights and the way I look at it now, he’ll be there still.”
Holmes is bringing a six-bout card to the remodeled Ohkay Hotel Casino on Nov. 1, featuring several local fighters, as well as others from across New Mexico.
“We were trying to make something happen at the Ohkay Casino for a little while,” he said. “They did a renovation there and made the property really nice. I was really very impressed with the property and the remodel.”
Cordova native Leanna Martinez, a longtime local favorite, will headline the card that will also feature veteran Angelo “San-I Warrior” Sanchez, who is from the San Ildefonso Pueblo.
For Martinez, 33, it will be her first fight in almost three years, although Holmes is still looking for her opponent.
“She’s very popular here,” he said. “She always does well here and in Albuquerque.
Sanchez, 41, will face middleweight Joe Garcia out of Hobbs and it could be his farewell bout, Holmes said.
“He’s had a very extensive and great boxing and mixed martial arts career,” Holmes said of Sanchez. “I think it could be his last fight but with guys like Angelo, he could be a great surprise. Sometimes guys like that, it’s hard for them because they love fighting so much.”
Other bouts will feature Santa Fe’s Jerome “The Renegade” Rivera, a UFC mixed martial arts veteran who will make his professional boxing debut as a lightweight.
And another Santa Fe boxer, Eduardo Piñon, will make his professional debut after an earlier fight in April was called off because his opponent didn’t make weight.
“He’s a hard-hitting, young, aggressive lion,” Holmes said.
It all should make for a heavy-hitting night as Holmes marks his return.
“In 2019, we were on the momentum swing,” he said. “I was inducted into the New Mexico Boxing Hall of Fame and we were really going for it. Things were happening. The mayor in Santa Fe gave me a Pat Holmes Day in October, we got those shows in 2020 and all of sudden, somebody pulled the plug. That’s the way it felt.”