Posted on 07/10/2020
By: Sean Crose
Last Valentines Day, at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, Ryan Garcia impressed his five million Instagram followers by decimating Francisco Fonseca in the opening round. Yet there was another fighter plying his trade on the DAZN that evening that brought a bit of attention of his own. No, Alejandro Reyes didn’t have untold thousands of fans in the stands earlier that night when he stepped into the ring to face Nelson Colon in a scheduled four rounder…but he had a considerable, and vocal, group of individuals present to cheer him on. Not bad for a fighter entering the night with a record of 2-0.
“Basically everybody’s family,” the lightweight prospect, now 3-0, tells me. “We consider them family.” Family is an important concept to the 21 year old Reyes. For instance, after his daily morning run – he trains six days a week – Reyes generally takes his sister to school. What’s more, boxing is essentially a family affair for the Reyes clan. “I had just turned eight,” he says of his beginnings in the fight game.“My pops is the one who took me. My sisters all fought.” Having engaged in “about 84,85 fights” as an amateur, Reyes was able to earn some valuable experience. “You go to the fights,” he says of the amateurs, “go to the tournaments.”
One of the notable things about the February card at the Honda Center was the determination visible in Reyes’ eyes before the opening bell. Simply put, some fighters appear focused and menacing before a bout, and some don’t. Count Reyes among the former. “I felt confident,” he says of that night, “because I did my work at the gym.” Fair enough. “It just developed across my boxing career,” he says of his pre fight expression. “I don’t think I try to intentionally do that. It’s time for business.” I ask him if nerves were an issue before the Colon bout. This was Reyes first time on a major streaming event, after all. “It didn’t click til after the fight,” he states, “where I was fighting and the magnitude of the event.”
Now that boxing is emerging, albeit slowly, from it’s deep pandemic freeze, there will be plenty of time for the undefeated young fighter to grow. With at least one major promotional outlet having Reyes on it’s radar, it’s clear people are taking note of his ring skills already. Having referred to the Colon fight as one of the biggest nights of his life, it’s obvious Reyes intends to have many more big nights in the future.