Augie “Kid Vegas” Sanchez REMEMBERED

By Luca “Mamaluke” Balossino

Augie ¨Kid Vegas¨ Sanchez at one point seemed that he was rising to the top as an amateur boxer.I am not a big fan of any division below Heavyweights, however Kid Vegas was a guarantee that you will have fun to watch so I started to pay attention a little bit on the featherweights.The peak of his amateur days was his winning the 1996 United States Amateur Featherweight title. He also faced Floyd Mayweather, JR. in the Olympic Trials, which he almost made it to represent the United States in the 1996 Olympic Games, but Mayweather, JR. was on his way in the Olympic Team by defeating Augie in 2 out of 3 bouts.

Allow me to say this about Augie Sanchez, he was that type of fighter when you saw him fighting early in his career you would think he could’ve had been a top contender or even could’ve had been a champion. He had the tools for that, fast and extremely a strong puncher. He turned pro in June of 1996 in Las Vegas with a 1st round TKO win over an unknown tomato-can Raul Maya. It was assumed that his style was only one punch away from success. Which was the case for the first 16 fights when he was undefeated with 14 knockouts on his record, until he had a huge upset against 7-8-1 Edgar Garcia by getting knocked out in 1 round. The fight had some controversy, because “Kid Vegas” had his opponent down also in the 1st round.

Following that upsetting loss, Augie went onto win 10 fights in a row where he also defeated Mexican Clown Legend and former IBF and WBO World Featherweight Champion: Jorge ´´Maromero´´ Paez via 7KO. This led him to fight Prince Naseem Hamed when he was 34-0 at the time. If you haven’t seen this bout you must watch it (find it on YouTube), it lasted 4 rounds and Augie knocked down Hamed in round 2, but was called a slip (which it was not). Hamed was clearly on the verge of losing his unbeaten record but a left right by the cocky British fighter closed the show in the fourth.
Following that loss, “Kid Vegas” would come out with 2 wins over Luisito Espinosa and Daniel Jimenez but in the Johnson fight, he was knocked down in a very spectacular fashion in just 31 seconds of the first round. This will end his career in boxing with a record of 28-3, 25 KO’s.

Augie left the sport at a very early stage, he was only 25. “I am done taking punches. I could have fought and made some good fights, but at the end of the day, will I be able to go in my car and remember how to get home. I don’t want to have to use a GPS to get home. I feel like a lot of fighters don’t realize that. They end up staying too long and that´s what ends up happening. I didn’t want that to be me.”

Currently he trains his boxers at Barry´s Boxing Center, in Las Vegas, which he also trains the son of Mike ´´The Bounty´´ Hunter, with a record at 10-0.Augie Sanchez in my book had championship talent, was very underrated. He was smart enough to leave the ring in one healthy piece for the rest of his life.

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