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Old School
By Felipe Buitrago
SEEMS LIKE every time some new sporting event takes place in San Jose, it's at the HP Pavilion. Well, get ready, because this time, the action moves to an entirely different scene. The San Jose Civic Auditorium will host "The Riot," an evening of old-school professional boxing on July 14 courtesy of Jerry Hoffman.
What? The name doesn't ring a bell? Well it should. Jerry Hoffman started out as a Monterey sports radio broadcaster 20 years ago, and then one fine day he found his calling when he was asked to be a ring announcer. One show became two, and two became three, until he developed his own show, the Riot at the Hyatt in Monterey. Since then he has been promoting and presenting fights from Monterey up to Santa Cruz, where he was known for his signature Shakedown in Quaketown events.
Now, Hoffman has moved the Riot's style of old-school boxing to San Jose, bringing top local contenders together in one ring. Carino Moreno from Watsonville has become a member of the U.S.A. Women's Boxing Team three years straight and has won the San Francisco Golden Gloves Award. Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero, who also started with Hoffman as a pro boxer, is a National Junior Olympic Gold Medalist with a 20-1-1 record with 13 KO's. The debut main event will have Jesus "Chuy" Rodriguez, who is 14–2, face off against Hector "The Mongoose" Alatorre, who is 14–1. Now here the stats say it all; fighters with that kind of record are fuel for a big fire.
The fire alarm will ring on July 14 at the San Jose Civic Auditorium; call Jeff Hoffman for tickets at 831.688.1604 or 831.915.1119.
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