May 5^th and boxing

Mexicans know the meaning of the celebration of May 5, commemorating the Battle of Puebla, involving the defence of Mexican territory against the French invasion.

This date has been geographically widened through migrants in the United States, and boxing had a lot to do with positioning May 5 as a great celebration, along with September 16, Mexico’s Independence Day.

It was the boxing cards in Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Texas, mainly, that gave it the dimension of a national holiday and for more than 30 years the most important fights in the world have been held on the weekend around this date.

Our migrants started this tradition celebrating important fights of Mexican idols  Rubén “Puas” Olivares, Carlos Zarate and Salvador Sanchez, almost 50 years ago.

It was in the 90’s when May 5 and September 16 became the basis for promoters and television stations in the world to make their annual calendar based on those two weekends.

Great representatives of Mexico have fought on these important dates, for example the three great Mexican featherweights, Erik “terrible” Morales, Juan Manuel Marquez and Marco Antonio Barrera. Manny Pacquiao also starred in 3 dates in Las Vegas. Legend to legend.

Julio Cesar Chavez passed it on to Oscar De la Hoya, The Golden Boy passed it on to Floyd Mayweather who owned May 5 for four consecutive years! And currently who is the face of world boxing, Saul “Canelo” Alvarez.

Canelo took over in 2016 when he defeated Britain’s Amir Khan to defend his WBC middleweight world title.