Boxing trainer Augie Sanchez at Barry’s Boxing Center, 2664 S. Highland Drive, on Monday, Nov. 17, 2014.
Sunday, Nov. 30, 2014 | 2 a.m.
Sanchez’s love story
He was fighting in a junior boxing tournament at the old Showboat. She was one of the ring girls.
That’s when Augie Sanchez, then 9, met his future wife, Dawn, then 7.
“I was sitting on the stool, and my feet couldn’t touch the ground,” he recalled.
They started dating in middle school and have been together since. They married in 1999.
“Initially, she wasn’t all too thrilled about boxing itself,” said Pat Barry, Dawn’s father and Augie’s trainer for part of his professional career. “She had other things she wanted to do on a Saturday afternoon. But, when she found out (Augie) was fighting, she would be there.”
Barry and Augie Sanchez train fighters at Barry’s Boxing gym. Dawn Sanchez coordinates tournaments locally and works as an official. This month, she traveled to Korea to score fights. Dawn Barry, Pat’s wife, does a little bit of everything at the club and is hugely popular with its patrons.
Sanchez’s three children often spend their evenings at the gym. Soon, Hunter Augustine Sanchez, 5, will follow his father’s footsteps into the ring. His sisters, Lily Pat and Cecelia Dawn, also plan to be involved in the family business.
“We’re a boxing family,” Pat Barry said. “When you do something long enough, it grows into you.”
The lobby of Barry’s Boxing on Highland Drive off the Strip is decorated with trophies and medals the club’s fighters have won throughout the years.
Hanging on the walls, almost hidden by the masses of awards, is an 8 1/2-by-11-inch framed photo from the 1996 Olympic Trials in Oakland. Augie Sanchez, one of the club’s trainers, is pictured leaping in excitement after beating Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Aside from having a full head of hair, Mayweather’s appearance hasn’t changed in almost 20 years. But who is the fighter standing next to him?
“I’ve got these new highlights in my hair,” 37-year-old Sanchez jokes, pointing to the gray. “Yeah, that’s me. Look how young I was. It was a long time ago.”
The fighters had a lengthy history against each other in junior boxing. Mayweather beat Sanchez in the next two fights at the trials to make the Olympic team in the featherweight division.
“That was the only year they had a box-off (to make the Olympics),” Sanchez said. “Can you believe that?”
Mayweather won bronze at the Olympics after dropping a controversial decision to Bulgaria’s Serafim Todorov in the semifinals but hasn’t lost since. He likely has just a few fights left before retiring and takes pride in the claim he has never been beaten as a professional.
Sanchez is equally proud he was the last American to defeat Mayweather, even if the victory happened almost two decades ago. And, if you ask Mayweather, he’ll say Sanchez was the last to legitimately defeat him.
“It was just wonderful,” said Pat Barry, who owns Barry’s Boxing and is Sanchez’s father-in-law and former trainer. “I remember the day well. My wife and daughter were (at the trials). My wife called me up all excited: ‘He did it. He beat Mayweather.’ ”
Mayweather now is a household name, and his contributions to boxing are unquestioned. He is the sport’s biggest draw and one of the lone reasons it remains relevant.
Sanchez, too, is thriving.
While Sanchez, who went 28-3 with an impressive 25 knockouts during a five-year professional career, hasn’t fought in more than a decade, he’s a boxing lifer who still spends most of his time at the gym. His passion today is working with children at Barry’s Boxing, teaching them the ins and outs of the sport and making sure they have perspective about what is most important.
The first lesson: There’s more to life than boxing. Sanchez was smart enough to retire in his mid-20s after losing two of his last four fights, knowing his well-being was more important than chasing a championship. He was knocked out during the first round of his last fight and left the ring on a stretcher.
“I didn’t want to have to use a GPS to find my way home from the gym,” he said.
Those medals and trophies are mostly his, symbols of a great junior career that inspire others to follow suit. Sanchez won the featherweight Golden Gloves national title in 1994 in Milwaukee, the most prestigious tournament for junior boxers. The gold trophy gloves are in a display case in the lobby.
“You should see the kids’ response when they first come in,” Barry said. “It’s, ‘Wow, can I win those, too?’ I tell them it’s about hard work and dedication. You need to work hard.”
On most afternoons, as many as 30 children train in the gym’s two rings, on heavy bags or with punching bags. When Sanchez walks in, he commands attention.
He knows the fighters by name and is familiar with their stories. Most youth boxers come from a rough upbringing and use the sport to stay off the streets. They hope one day to be like ‘Kid Vegas,’ the moniker given to Sanchez by Top Rank Promotions when he turned professional at age 19.
Sanchez went from fighting at the old Golden Gloves gym on Washington Avenue near downtown to fighting on the Strip on the undercard of a Mike Tyson bout. Becoming a trainer was the natural next step.
“Fighting is an all-or-nothing sport,” Barry said. “It becomes a lifestyle. You do it from morning to night. When you get too old to do it anymore, this is what you do. You find yourself hanging out in the gym, working with a kid who you see has potential.”
Mayweather has the fame and fortune. Sanchez has his family — his wife, Dawn, and the three foster children they adopted — and the children he trains at Barry’s Boxing.
“I wouldn’t change my life for anything,” Sanchez said. “Everything works out for a reason.”
Ray Brewer can be reached at 702-990-2662 or [email protected]. Follow Ray on Twitter at twitter.com/raybrewer21
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy