Plant City Boxing Gym’s March 10 amateur showcase was a night Jesus Dimas won’t soon forget. Dimas, 15, defeated Baldemar Nava by unanimous decision to win his first amateur fight. The Tomlin student has been boxing at the gym for just over a year and credits the sport and his coaches with turning his life around.
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Your coach told me you’ve made some big changes in life since you started boxing and have become a better person. What life lessons has boxing taught you?
Many people that have come to this boxing gym, coaches and other people, pros, they used to talk to me about life. I’ve seen that in boxing I can do something better with my life. I started thinking that what I was doing out here wasn’t gonna get me anywhere in life…I got into boxing and started talking to many pros, and I saw that they were really happy. I was like, “I can actually do something in boxing.”
How did you and your family feel when you won?
I felt really happy because I had made my dad and my family proud. I know that, out here, I hadn’t been making too many (people) proud. I had been getting in trouble at school. Ever since I joined boxing, they’ve been helping me out. My dad, mostly…even though he comes out from work late, he would always come rushing to bring me to the boxing gym so I can be 100% ready. They were really happy. They were really proud of me. I was proud of myself, too.
What’s the best advice you’ve gotten?
Life is really hard. Life is not like how you see it, it’s how it is. If I kept doing what I was doing out here, it wasn’t gonna get me anywhere. Killed, jail, something different. Boxing is all about your mind, what you put into it. Jose helped me out a lot. I used to get in the ring and be all mad and stuff. I would want to beat up somebody. But Coach Jose would always tell me, “Focus, focus, this is not about beating up somebody. It’s about putting your mind into it.”