Ball Team’s Owner Promises Boxing Too

Promising to bring more to Ventura County than minor league baseball, Pacific Suns owner Don DiCarlo has told the Oxnard City Council that he will promote local professional boxing matches as well.

DiCarlo said at Tuesday’s council meeting that he plans to host monthly boxing cards at Leonardo’s Nightclub on Wagon Wheel Road. Most of the matches would pit prize fighters from nearby cities such as Santa Paula and Port Hueneme against each other.

The baseball club owner said he would promote the matches along with Robert Valdez, president of Primitive Sports Promotion.

DiCarlo said there have been professional boxing matches in Oxnard before, “but no one’s ever taken it seriously enough to have year-round events.”

The first boxing matches will be held Nov. 19 and continue the third Wednesday of every month, the promoters said in a statement. DiCarlo believes there is a strong local audience for the sport, based on visits to youth boxing clubs in Oxnard and El Rio.

“This has been something we’ve been looking at for a long time,” he said Wednesday. “It’s been something that’s been popular for a very long time.”

He concluded his presentation to council members, who had no comment about the boxing announcement at the meeting, by handing out Pacific Suns posters to everyone there.

The baseball team, which hopes to play at Oxnard College next year, is awaiting completion of the city’s environmental study on the proposal.

There has been some opposition to use of the college ball field. Mobile home activist Martin Jones has circulated a petition to get the team to play in another part of the city, away from homes.

“The boxing doesn’t bother me, because it’s on the other side of town and indoors,” Jones said. But he said the baseball games would bring “noise, lights and traffic” to his neighborhood.

DiCarlo said he expects the city’s study to find the environmental issues insignificant.