By all accounts, Vegas is the gold standard of locales for the sport of boxing.
But this Saturday, Lake County actually is in contention for the silver.
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For fight fans living in this corner of the state, the day and night are for you, starting Saturday afternoon in Round Lake Beach and continuing at two locations on Saturday night.
The movers and shakers, so to speak, are Juan Curiel of the Round Lake-based Hook Aim Cross Punch youth boxing club and the American Boxing Organization, and Larry Lentz of the Libertyville-based Lake County Athletic & Boxing Club.
Curiel has long been invested in mentoring youngsters in the Round Lake area through his boxing program.
And along the way, he helped form the American Boxing Organization, which is for pro fighters.
And Saturday from 3-5 p.m. at the Round Lake Beach Sports Center, Curiel will hold an ABO Expo that is a must-attend event for followers of the sport.
And it’s free.
On hand to visit with fans, have pictures taken and support the ABO will be what Curiel refers to as boxing celebrities. The list includes former Illinois Boxing Hall of Famer and former WBC light-heavyweight champ Montell “Ice” Griffin and Hall of Famer Dannell “Doc” Nicholson.
Also attending will be current welterweight boxer Will Coix who has one of the all-time great boxing nicknames — Power — and active middleweight boxer Fearless Fernando Hernandez.
There will be nearly two dozen exhibitors at the expo, including Curiel’s HACP Boxing Club, and many other boxing clubs. There also will be other types of exhibitors, including fitness facilities such as LA Fitness, which has facilities in Waukegan and the Round Lake area.
The expo will end at 5 p.m.. Then, at 7 p.m. at the same location, the HACP club will host an evening of amateur boxing at the Sports Center. This show will be an all-female event and will include young boxers from Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Missouri.
Tickets cost $10 and all proceeds will benefit the HACP boxing program.
While that’s going on in Round Lake Beach, over at the Libertyville Sports Complex on Route 45, Lentz is holding an evening of amateur boxing matching fighters from Illinois clubs against boxers from the Detroit area.
Doors open at 6 and the first bout is at 7. General admission tickets are $30 and tables for groups also are available. Call (708) 476-0674 for ticket information.
This is the latest in a series of monthly amateur boxing shows put on by Lentz, who runs his boxing club out of the Libertyville Sports Complex.
Lentz actually got boxing going at the complex last May with his Badges vs. Bad Guys event.
Some of the proceeds from that show were used to provide scholarships to at-risk youths at Mundelein High School so they can be part of Lentz’s boxing program. It’s yet another legitimate effort to using boxing as a tool to help youngsters who are struggling in some aspects of their lives.
In fact, one of the recipients of a scholarship to the boxing program was Isaiah Vasquez. Recently, Vasquez got into the ring and had an amateur fight in one of Lentz’s monthly shows and, as Lentz put it, he “won over the crowd with a spectacular KO.”
Mundelein Mayor Steve Lentz, who is no relation to Larry Lentz, is a big supporter of the scholarship program and also was victorious in his ring debut at the Badges vs. Bad Guys show, when he proved that while you can fight city hall, you can’t beat it.
And, for the record, Mayor Lentz was not one of the “Bad Guys” on his fight night, and genuinely is one of the good guys, in the ring and out.
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Twitter: @JeffBonato