CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Julian Delgado, a young boxer from Corpus Christi, has achieved his second consecutive State Golden Gloves Championship in less than two years. Delgado, who used to run a landscaping business called "Delgado's Landscaping," decided to dedicate himself entirely to boxing, quitting his career and all his accounts.
"I quit my career," said Julian. "I had a landscaping business called 'Delgado's landscaping'. I got rid of all my accounts, tossed it to the side, and this is all I'm doing. Just training, I wanted to go win the Golden Gloves and it just took off from there."
With only 15 months of experience in the ring, Delgado has already accomplished a great deal. "He started pretty rough and as a kid, we needed to get some work done and all we did was put him through the buffer and shined him up and now he's shining like a diamond," said Robert Gutierrez, a 10x Golden Glove Champion and boxing coach.
Delgado recently defeated the #8 boxer in the nation and is currently preparing for the National Golden Gloves competition. Delgado said his ultimate goals are to become a national champion, an Olympic gold medalist and to make his professional debut.
Delgado attributes his success to his coach, who has been supporting him and helping him pursue his dreams. "He's allowing me to pursue my goals and dreams by taking the time out of his day to travel, drive, take care of me as far as if I need my meals taken care of," said Julian.
Delgado's boxing coach, Robert Gutierrez, describes him as a hard worker who "trains like an animal, eats like an animal, and obviously doesn't say no to nothing. It's 'go, let's go,' and 'let's go get it' that's him."
For Delgado, the key to success is to train like it's the third round, pushing himself to his limits even when he's exhausted. "The last 45 seconds of the fight, you're exhausted, it might be a super hard fight, your partner is exhausted, the person you're fighting is exhausted. It imitates the feeling of putting it in over-drive when you don't feel like doing it," he said.
Delgado hopes to make his hometown proud and dreams of running down Ocean Drive with a crowd of people cheering him on, like in the Rocky movies. "To be running down Ocean Drive and kind of like in the Rocky movies, have a crowd of people cheering me on, you know," Julian added.
Delgado's older brother, Jonathan Delgado, was part of the 2008 Corpus Christi Golden Gloves state team. "This is my oldest brother, Jonathan Delgado, the 2008 Corpus Christ Golden Glove state team," said Delgado. Julian said he looked up to Jonathan. "He was a boxer when he was my age," said Julian Delgado. His brother added, "Just the amount of success that he's reached in a short amount of time, it's very admirable, it's a great accomplishment. Very proud."
Delgado will compete in Philadelphia in the second week of May.
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