A Homegrown Boxing Startup Meets Its Match: State Regulators

Brito and Gutierrez hoped their start-up could be the next Ultimate Fighting Championship or Bare Knuckle Fighting Championship, big-time fight businesses that started small. Along the way, they said, they would help poor and homeless people, though those plans weren’t completely formed.

“It’s a real sick time in the world right now, and all I want to do is help,” Gutierrez said. “This can be worldwide one day, and I know we can get it there.”

But they soon drew a formidable opponent, and its name was the California State Athletic Commission.

The Dentist vs. the Ram

Gutierrez got the idea for Backyard Squabbles while working out in a garage with a cousin, Christian Padilla, a former mixed martial arts competitor. The family had a history in fighting: Another cousin, Christopher Padilla, appeared on a 2018 fight card in Bellator M.M.A., considered the second-largest promotion behind the U.F.C.

Gutierrez, who grew up in South Los Angeles and lost an uncle to gun violence, was concerned about the rise in shootings during the pandemic. He thought staging boxing and mixed martial arts events might keep people from getting into trouble in the streets. The lockdown gave him extra time to put on events. Besides, he said, he had thrown parties in high school, and was good at it.

Mutual friends introduced Gutierrez to Brito, who was enrolled in trade school to become a welder. They created an Instagram page — Brito has a passion for photography — and began recruiting athletes, relying on friends and Christian Padilla’s connections at local gyms. They scraped together a card with five fights, promoting it by staging mock news conferences they posted on Instagram.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/sports/knockout-punch.html