MERCEDES — Noe Mendoza Jr. wanted to become a professional boxer growing up in Weslaco.
It’s a dream many young boxers have growing up in the Valley.
He didn’t go that route. Instead, he enrolled at Texas A&M after high school.
When he learned the school had no boxing team, he decided to start the school’s boxing club in order to stay involved with the sport. Because of his love of boxing, long after graduating college in 2016, the now 25-year-old Mendoza is still involved with the club.
These days, Mendoza is the Aggies boxing coach, and he’s bringing two of his best boxers to the Valley to go toe-to-toe with two of the University of Texas at Austin’s best fighters.
And it’s all going down at the first Battle at the Border boxing event.
“I thought it would be good to bring home two of the best boxers from these schools and expose the Valley kids you don’t have to go pro there is boxing at the college level,” Mendoza said.
The fights will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday in Mercedes starting at the Rio Grande Valley Livestock Show Grounds.
There are 25 fights scheduled, including two featured bouts between the college fighters.
The event is sponsored by the Bocanegra Boxing gym of Donna and Las Brisas Boxing gym of Weslaco.
Entrance is $12 for children and $15 for adults.
There will be one male and one female fight between the in-state rivals. Texas A&M’s Lauren Burnett, 19, will fight UT’s Alejandra Gutierrez in a three-round match.
Texas A&M boxer Alarek Santiago, 22, will be fighting UT’s Noah Grass, also in a three-round match.
“It’s my coach’s hometown, and I want to put on a good show,” Santiago said. “I want to show the crowd my coach is a great coach,”
Santiago is coming off his first loss in the ring at the U.S. Collegiate Boxing Association National Boxing Expo in March held at Syracuse University.
Santiago said Grass is a taller opponent, who is also a southpaw.
Boxing fans and Longhorns and Aggies fans have a chance to enjoy an old rivalry that was once gone but has returned.
“This is something that has not been done in more than 50 years,” Mendoza said about the matchup between the two schools, adding that the NCAA stopped sanctioning competitive boxing in the 60s, thus setting up this first battle between the rivals in decades.