CHULA VISTA – For 24 months, Aaron Garcia had not been in the ring. When he returned to it last night, it was as if the Vista featherweight had never been away.
“Of all my fights, this is the best I have looked,” Garcia said after his thumping body punches had delivered him a unanimous six-round decision over a willing Arturo “Aguilito” Valenzuela of Tijuana at Swiss Park.
In a companion six-rounder offered before a paid crowd of 623, close to capacity at this outdoor venue, Emilio Bojorquez, a Tijuana super featherweight with a stellar amateur background, stopped Cesar Garcia of Ensenada after 2:13 of the opening round. Bojorquez felled his rival with a body shot in the opening minute, then was belaboring him in a corner when Dr. James Jen Kin, the referee, intervened.
As a fighter coming off a prolonged layoff and needing to get work, Aaron Garcia (8-1, with two knockouts) could not have had a more fitting opponent than the veteran Valenzuela, who has opposed many ranking fighters.
At the beginning, Garcia found he could reach Valenzuela to the body and he did throughout the six rounds, but Valenzuela (20-11, 17 KOs) was still there at the finish. He even appeared to shake up the winner slightly in the final round with a body punch.
Garcia offered “legal problems” as the reason for his two-year absence from a sport in which he had a splendid amateur career, winning a promotional tie with Golden Boy Promotions.
Bojorquez, three times a Baja California champion as an amateur, twice a Mexican national champion and a member of his country's Olympic team from 2004-06, had by his accounting 107 amateur fights, winning all but 10. He quickly demonstrated his class in what was his first professional appearance outside Mexico.
The evening's most tumultuous encounter was a four-round heavyweight bout in which Bernard Gray, a 220-pounder from Oakland, created a sizable lead after three rounds, then had to hold on to outlast Lawson Baker of San Diego and claim a unanimous decision.
In other bouts, all four-rounders, flyweight Sergio Herrera of Oxnard outpointed Elton Dhnarry of San Pedro; super flyweight Oscar Marin of Mexicali claimed a decision over Evgeniy Khil of Russia; and featherweight Jesus Adams of Los Angeles scored a decision over Frank Gutierrez of San Bernardino.
