Burbank amateur boxer keeping up the good fight after a year on the road
Burbank High School graduate and welterweight boxer Damien Lopez, 20, right, spars with Pasadena’s David Mijares, left, at Defiant Muay Thai Boxing Gym in Burbank on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2016. Olympic hopeful Lopez has been boxing for about 10 years and was a standout football player at Burbank High School.
As clients trickled into Daniel Gutierrez’s Defiant Muay Thai Gym in Burbank on Thursday, 20-year-old Damien Lopez was in the ring “burning off those holiday dinners,” his coach Steve Harpst said, with a few three-minute rounds of what Harpst called “combat.”
Lopez, a Burbank resident, was sparring with David Mijares, 20, of Pasadena, in the first practice match for both since before the holidays. The two “keep each other sharp,” Harpst said, and the smaller-than-regulation ring at the Thai boxing gym gives them “a different kind of a workout ... it’s intensified.”
The two had traveled to Memphis in late October hoping to qualify for the Olympic team trials and a shot to compete in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Neither qualified, but both said the experience at the amateur competition, where they fought without headgear, taught them they’re ready to go pro.
Lopez’s father, David, said his son gained great experience through the qualifier process — he also competed in qualifiers in Spokane, Wash., in January and Colorado Springs, Colo., in June — including the fact that he can fight well on the road.
“A lot of these guys fall apart when they travel,” David Lopez said. “It didn’t bother him.”
The travel was funded by supporters in Burbank. He had traveled to the first two qualifier tournaments with the help of the local club, which trains at the Burbank Community YMCA, but the club has to find other venues for sparring matches.
To fund travel expenses for Damien Lopez and his trainers to go to Tennessee, the Lopezes and fellow club members went before the Burbank City Council in August to get the word out to the wider community.
Damien Lopez, who earned a championship belt in boxing at the 2014 Adidas National Tournament in Oxnard, is a graduate of Burbank High School, where he played football.
Several locals, including Sunrise Rotary Club members, rallied to help raise more than $2,400 for the trip, said Harpst. The club members plan to visit City Council soon to thank the community, he said.
Sunrise Rotary member Juan Guillen was struck by Damien Lopez’s genuine passion at the council meeting, so he invited him to give a presentation to the Rotary club. Guillen said he used to box with the club — it helped him lose close to 30 pounds prior to joining the Marine Corps — and feels it instills values such as “getting up when you fall.”
“It’s not an easy hill to climb to be the best at anything,” Guillen said, but he said Damien Lopez’s passion inspired the generosity of the Rotary members.
The local support “got me where I wanted to go ... gave me the chance,” Damien Lopez said this week. “I gave it a shot.”
The welterweight made it to the quarterfinals in Spokane and Colorado Springs but didn’t fare as well east of the Mississippi, where he won two bouts, but was beaten by decision one round shy of the quarterfinals.
Mijares, a light welterweight, lost in the second round of the tournament, in what he described as a tough decision. He said he learned he “should have done more to assure my dominance.”
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Chad Garland, chad.garland@latimes.com
Twitter: @chadgarland
