Western Technical College

    You wouldn’t know it by this boxer’s tough exterior and disciplined attitude in training, but he really has an amiable and even infectious energy.  So much energy that when he was a young boy day dreaming about being the karate kid, even his real karate lessons didn’t offer the release he needed.  Escalante recalls that life growing up in Juarez wasn’t ever easy from neighborhood bullies breaking his father’s eggs to full blown gang fights.  He remembers and incident that may just have inspired him to learn to fight.  When he was 10, he remembers seeing a gang fight, or more specifically as Escalante calls them “rinas.”  The image of two groups clashing with weapons has stayed with Escalante as that day he witnessed a brutal stabbing.      

    When Antonio Escalante was a young boy, he and his family lived in Juarez, Mexico.  To earn money for the family his mother would travel back and forth to the United States to work; sometimes she would be gone for two days, sometimes two months.  As one might imagine that would be hard on a young boy.  Escalante recalls climbing a mountain to try to get a better look at where his mom might be.  Taking in the expanse and what was separating him from his mom, he might have noticed the seemingly small divide but a whole world of difference.  He was eleven when he remembers crossing the bridge to live in the US with his mother.  He says, to him, it was a game to make it past the border patrol guards when crossing, by saying in his best, if accented, English, “American.”

    Upon moving to the US, Escalante remembers being absolutely amazed at the difference in living situations. When he attended Lincoln Middle School and was given a number, a number he was pleasantly surprised to find out meant free lunch.  It made him realize how, while living in Juarez, the violence and poverty had become an accepted way of life, because at the time they didn’t seem so bad. Now with the benefit of a relative perspective he could see so plainly how hard life was. At 13 he remembers, when he found something more suiting than the karate classes he was taking.  He needed something more.

    Boxing at San Juan was his new outlet for energy, and he loved it.  Although, he was reassured by many that he was really a good boxer, Escalante wasn’t entirely convinced boxing is where he’d stay, so he also focused on his studies, too and graduated from Coronado High School.  By 18, Escalante had accomplished more than most new adults, by having already met the woman he would marry and have with a beautiful family, and he had also already become the champion of the Golden Gloves Tournament.  In 2004, a fight, in Laredo, Texas, would change the course of his life.  When unexpectedly a fighter was knocked out, and there was nothing to fill in air time, Escalante got his big break, because watching was Oscar de la Hoya. 

    De La Hoya was impressed with what he saw in Escalante and even tested him to see about signing him. At the first test, Escalante claims, “I was so nervous, and I didn’t look very good.”  It took three trial runs, and by the third test, Escalante knocked out his sparring partner, and since then he has been signed and fighting by and for Oscar de la Hoya.  His current record is 22 wins, only 2 loses, and 14 KO’s!

    At Antonio Escalante’s recent victory fight on Friday February 26, at the Don Haskins Center, he fought a familiar foe, Mr. Miguel Roman. Interestingly enough, they have fought before, but not in a ring and not for a sponsored form of entertainment. No, these fights happened back on the streets of Juarez, when the two were just young boys. Those neighborhood egg-breaking bullies were Miguel Roman and his older brothers. Escalante’s father would send him to purchase the needed groceries milk and eggs, but on the way home from the store he would be confronted and forced to fight. He recalls having fought Miguel Roman at least twice, and coincidently enough, Escalante’s and Roman’s fathers are still neighbors!

    Western Technical College (WTC) is a proud Sponsor of Antonio Escalante. As the college is celebrating 40 years of student success, during the month of March WTC is offering fans the opportunity to register to win a lunch with El Paso’s own World Ranked Boxer. For more information, visit www.westerntech.edu beginning March 1 and register to win!