The moment Ramon Ordonez had envisioned for years came and went almost in the blink of an eye.
The highly regarded prospect Ordonez made a successful professional debut May 1 in Hanover, Maryland, stopping Carlos Davila Villalobos in the opening round with a series of body shots on a ProBox TV card. Ordonez said the experience of turning pro lived up to everything he imagined.
“As I'm preparing in the back room, warming up, getting my hands wrapped, in my mind I'm thinking like, ‘Damn, this is really it,’” said the 19-year-old Ordonez, of Newark, New Jersey. “And then by the time I got in there, once everything was done and said, it was like, ‘That's it already?’ I definitely felt like, damn, it's already over.”
The ending came just over two minutes into the first as Ordonez targeted his opponent’s midsection with counterpunches. Ordonez, who previously fought at the national and international level as an amateur, didn’t score many knockouts in his amateur career, but he had done so in the gym during sparring sessions. Doing it under the bright lights on a fight card streamed live around the world, however, made the stakes feel a lot higher.
“I've done it plenty of times in sparring, so it's something that I experienced before doing to someone,” he said. “But it being on the pro stage and on a ProBox TV card, being live-streamed on their platform to a bunch of people, it was definitely a different feeling.”
The biggest adjustment, Ordonez said, came in adapting to the smaller professional gloves. He says he was familiar with boxing without headgear from his time on the USA Boxing national team. He is also doing a lot more interviews than he usually does, which is a welcome opportunity to introduce himself to the world. The overall atmosphere surrounding professional boxing, however, left an impression.
“I've seen other great pros do it,” Ordonez said. “Now, to be in that position with the media and the weigh-ins and stuff like that, it just felt good. Especially the weigh-ins part, being able to weigh in and not have to fight later that day, being able to fight the next day.That was a good feeling. I definitely prefer that rather than how I used to be in the amateurs, fighting a week straight, weighing in in the morning, then having to fight the next day and continue all the way until the tournament is done.”
And in Maryland, Ordonez was far from alone. Family members made the trip from North Jersey, while friends drove in from South Carolina to witness his debut in person.
Among those who reached out afterward was WBO junior welterweight titleholder Shakur Stevenson, a fellow alumnus from the Elite Heat Boxing Gym in Newark, who sent Ordonez a direct message encouraging him to continue pushing forward.
Following the fight, Ordonez celebrated quietly with the people closest to him, going out to eat, taking photos and spending quality time at the end of a tough training camp.
A date for his next fight has yet to be solidified, but Ordonez said he has no intention of staying out of the gym long.
“The fight wasn't hard. I'm not gonna say I'm recovering from the fight – we saw how that went,” he said. “I'm just letting the body rest and recovering from the intense training that we were putting in. I was working very hard in training camp. Then we’re gonna be right back to it.”
Manager Rick Mirigian believes the debut offered a glimpse of the promise Ordonez’s career holds.
“He showed every sign of being a star,” Mirigian said. “The way he carried himself before and after the fight, the way he fought – his size and power is second to none in the division. Puerto Rico had one of its future stars born with that body shot.”
Ryan Songalia is a reporter and editor for BoxingScene.com and has written for ESPN, the New York Daily News, Rappler, The Guardian, Vice and The Ring magazine. He holds a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism and is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be reached at ryansongalia@gmail.com or on Twitter at @ryansongalia.
