Boxing promoter Pat Holmes has found a home at Ohkay

Saturday

Boxing: Antonio ‘Tone’ Martinez vs. Raymond Chacon, Rolyn Nez vs. Ephraim Martinez, several other fights. 6 p.m., Ohkay Hotel Casino. Ticket information: 505-795-2772

We’ve all been there. You’ve just finished a huge, three-course meal and you’re wondering if you’ll ever want to eat again. But the next morning, surprise! You go in search of breakfast.

That, Santa Fe’s Pat Holmes said in a phone interview, essentially is how he feels about the all-consuming job of boxing promotion.

Saturday, Holmes will stage his third card in a span of 5 1/2 months at Ohkay Hotel Casino outside Espanola — this after a nearly six-year absence from the business.

He’d attributed that hiatus, after having promoted or co-promoted at least 16 pro cards from 2012-2020, partly to COVID-19 and in part to burnout — weary of dealing with the fighters, the managers, the trainers, the state, the media, the venues.

How does he feel now?

“(Fight week) might not be the best time to ask me, because oh, man,” he said. Yet, he already has a card tentatively scheduled for Oct. 24 and said he would consider promoting sometime this summer.

His enthusiasm, he said, largely stems from the relationship he and the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo have established. Holmes’ first two cards at Ohkay were essentially sellouts. Only a few tickets, he said on Tuesday, remain for Saturday’s card.

“We have a comfortable place there,” he said. (Pueblo leaders) are looking long term. They’re very happy with what we’re doing.”

TONE’S BACK: Espanola’s Antonio “Tone” Martinez was a frequent flyer on Holmes’ cards of the past, 14 of them at Buffalo Thunder Casino Resort in Pojoaque between 2012 and 2019.

Then came Covid-19, shutting down boxing in New Mexico for all of 2020 and most of 2021. Martinez (11-5-4 six KOs), who turned 34 in March 2021, stepped away to focus on work and family.

Now, at 39, he’s headlining Holmes’ card at Ohkay.

Martinez, Holmes said, not long ago weighed 191 pounds. At last weigh-in, the scale read, “like, 148. He came in in great shape, shredded up.”

As is understandable considering Martinez’s long absence from the ring, Holmes is not putting him in with a monster for Saturday’s six-round bout. Raymond Chacon, Martinez’s listed opponent, has a record of 11 wins, 74 losses, 1 draw.

But Chacon’s a survivor, having been stopped only 12 times among those 74 defeats. Six of the Torrance, California boxer’s last seven bouts — one of them a victory by split decision — went the distance.

There’s this, as well: one of Chacón’s 11 victories came in New Mexico. In 2016, Chacon defeated Espanola’s Tony Valdez by split decision at Camel Rock Casino.

THE CARD: Holmes is planning seven bouts, including a welterweight six-rounder of great interest between Bloomfield’s Rolyn Nez (6-0, four KOs) and Ephraim Martinez (6-2, two KOs) of Lubbock, Texas.

In September 2024 in Farmington, Martinez handed Kirtland’s Elija Martinez, Nez’s Four Corners friend and training partner, his only pro defeat. (None of the Martinezes, Ephraim, Elija or Antonio, are related).

Santa Fe’s Jerome Rivera (1-0, one KO), a former UFC MMA fighter, is matched against Javier Saenz (pro debut), a native of Mexico who’s listed as from Albuquerque, in a four-round lightweight bout.

Albuquerque super bantamweight Jorge Villlarruel (2-0, one KOs), is scheduled to face Denver’s Joe Moralez (2-1, two KOs) in a scheduled four-rounder.

Santa Fe’s Eduardo Piñon (2-0,1 KO) is matched against Albuquerque’s Quentin DeLeon (1-1, one KO) in a four round bantamweight bout.

Of the 14 fighters scheduled for Holmes’ card on Saturday, 11 are listed as from New Mexico. Four are from Santa Fe or Espanola — almost guaranteeing a good crowd.

Holmes said Tone Martinez, a big draw for Holmes in the past, “lives about five minutes (from Ohkay.)”

NEXT FOR GUERO: Albuquerque’s Jose Luis “Guero” Sanchez (14-6-1, four KOs) is scheduled to face unbeaten David Whitmore 11-0, eight KOs) in an eight-round welterweight bout on a May 1 card in Hanover, Maryland.

Fighting an unbeaten opponent is nothing new for Sanchez, who’s done so seven times in the past six years — with some success.

In 2023, Sanchez hung the first defeat on the records of Rashad Shahid (then 10-0) and Eric Tudor (then 9-0).

In Sanchez’s most recent fight, he fought to an eight-round draw against Justin Lacey Pierce, now 13-0-1.

The story was first reported by boxingnewmexico.com.