Jesus Gonzales: The Pride of Phoenix.

“I’ve been training really hard, I’m ready for this fight and I’m all set to walk through who I’m calling ‘No’ Chance Leggett!”-Jesus Gonzales.

Phoenix, Arizona is a city of over a million people and one of the fastest growing municipalities in the US. It’s also home to a large number of boxers, the best of whom just may be a skyrocketing middleweight by the name of Jesus Gonzales. The hard- punching southpaw has belted his way to fourteen straight victories and will be looking to replicate that success tonight on the Spanish language Telefutura broadcast of Solo Boxeo from the suburban Phoenix town of Fountain Hills. Gonzales is set to meet Louisiana hardman Chance Leggett in a scheduled eight-rounder, but the confident young man is telling everyone who will listen that it won’t go the distance. If it’s true that punchers are born and not made, Jesus Gonzales was knocking ’em out from day one. After a highly decorated amateur career, the twenty-year-old has never missed a beat in the pro game. Out of fourteen bouts so far, Gonzales has yet to fall prey to an opponent and of those fourteen victims, ten of them never made it past the fourth round.

Even though opponent Chance Leggett, a former Texas middleweight champion, is basically the same size as Gonzales, Jesus should be excused if he thinks he’s in with a featherweight. This is in no small part due to that fact that the hot prospect prepared for this bout by going up against a king sized challenge. “I’ve been sparring with Georgie Garcia, a heavyweight, who was one of the top amateurs in the USA,” said Gonzales. “I do really good against him because I’m way faster but I have to make sure I avoid his punches, which believe me, I do. I’ve been training really hard, I’m ready for this fight and I’m all set to walk through who I’m calling ‘No’ Chance Leggett!”

Leggett, 11-5 (5), is coming out of Westlake, Louisiana after sharing the ring with Willie Gibbs, Jose Luis Zertuche, Vinroy Barrett and most recently Roberto Garcia. Having thoroughly studied up on the southerner, Gonzales feels a few steps above confident about his chances. “I watched a tape of him against Zertuche and I think Leggett will be lucky if he gets past the third round with me,” he said. “I don’t think he can take a lot of punishment and he tends to punch himself out early in fights. Everything he does he starts off with a jab first and I think I have him figured out already even though I haven’t even fought him yet.”

Should Gonzales get past Leggett as widely expected, the native Arizonan is set for a serious spring and summer, averaging approximately one fight every three weeks for the next four months. As he builds his skills against increasingly difficult competition, the goal this year is for the Phoenix man to contend for a title by late fall, while gaining an opening slot on a high-profile card along the way. “I did really good in my last fight and I was very comfortable in there,” recalled Gonzales. “It pretty much went the way I expected things to go because when I’m in shape the way I am now, I think all my fights are going to go like that. ‘No’ Chance Leggett is going to find that on Friday night.

“I feel that I’m more than ready for some kind of title fight soon because I train so hard and I’m doing so well. For now, I’d like to step up my competition up so I can get a lot of learning done during fights. I hope to fight somebody really good on the under-card of the Chavez pay-per-view and believe it or not, it’ll be my second pay-per-view appearance. In October 2003, I was on the Morales-Espadas rematch card and that was so much fun that I can’t wait to go back to California. Right now though, I am in the process of going down in weight to junior middle and already I’m down to 158. For a big fight, I won’t have any trouble at all getting to 154 because my only goal is to become a champion.”

Richard Eberline can be reached at richardeberline@fastmail.fm