By Mariana Llamas-Cendon
Amigos805.com
OXNARD — At 24 years of age, Brandon “Bam Bam” Rios is a professional in the boxing ring. As an amateur fighter Rios had won the Silver Gloves, the Ringside Nationals, the USA Nationals, and was chosen as an alternate for the Olympics in 2004.
As a pro, he had won against the Hawaiian Manuel “Hands of Death” (Manos de la Muerte) Perez and the newyorican Jorge Teron, in 2009; also against Anthony Peterson in a WBA title eliminator on a HBO Boxing After Dark card in Las Vegas, Nevada, and against Omri Lowther during a HBO PPV fight that took place in Cowboys Stadium in Texas, in 2010. Last February, he defeated WBA World Lightweight Champion, Venezuelan Miguel Acosta.
Rios is considered a “rising star” for specialized media, and has signed by Top Rank promotions, the company that signed Muhammed Ali and currently, Manny Paquiao. So Rios’ future is looking quite bright, even though it wasn’t like this during his teenager years, when he was still living in Garden City, Kansas, and apparently he couldn’t stay out of trouble.
According to Maxboxing.com, Rios’ manager Cameron Dunkin stated that there were times when Rios didn’t want to settle in Oxnard and that worried him.
“Oh, gosh, he was just constantly in trouble and we just hoped something bad didn’t happen and he wouldn’t come back and there were times when he wanted to go back there and live, didn’t want to stay out in Oxnard and he wasn’t focused at all,” said Dunkin to Maxboxing.com.
“Hometown, like I said; I was a dumb, immature kid and everything. And that’s where everything started. Hanging around the wrong people, doing the wrong things in Garden City. That’s when I moved over here permanently now. When I go back now, I go back for a week or two. I won’t go back any longer because any longer, you never know what might happen,” Rios told Maxboxing.com.
After settling down in Oxnard, Brandon’s life definitely made a 360 degree turn; he was married last year to Victoria Lopez, and has a 4-month-old baby.
“I met my wife in Oxnard. I have been married for almost a year, I got married before the Petersen fight in Las Vegas,” Rios said.
A role model is born
Rios was born in Lubbock, Texas, in 1986, but moved at the age of two with his father, an employee at a slaughterhouse, his mother, three sisters and a brother, to Garden City, in Kansas, where he remained until meeting his current trainer Robert Garcia from Oxnard’s Garcia Boxing Academy. He was only 18 and didn’t know anyone in Ventura County.
“I met Robert in the 2004 Olympic trial in Mississippi, and he asked me if I wanted to go,” Brandon recalled.
At Garcia’s academy it was where Brandon’s nickname was forged…
Finish reading Boxer Brandon Rios shows that dreams can come true
