Undefeated Boxer Shoots for the Stars

Ronnie “The Mongoose” Baca is currently undefeated in his career as a professional boxer but it’s just a stepping stone towards his goal to be a world champion, he said.

“It’s a newbeginning right now, I’m just extremely focused it keeps me level-headed it keeps me ambitious and I’m just shooting for the stars,” Baca said.

Baca admits that his goal is every fighters dream and at this point right now he is just learning as he goes by but despite that he’s keeping his eye on the prize, he said.

Baca was born and raised in Arizona but he officially moved to New Mexico around the end of 2014.

At 24-year-old today Baca said he has always had strong ties to New Mexico as his father is originally from Santa Fe and so Baca has a lot of family in the state from his father’s side.

Due to this Baca has always been familiar with Albuquerque or Santa Fe due to family visits growing up as a kid.

His decision to move to New Mexico in 2014 was made after speaking to his father and deciding to focus on his boxing career, he said.

Officially Baca started boxing as a freshman 14-year-old going on to 15, he said.

“My father was the one who was very enthused with boxing,” Baca said. “As a kid I always used to watch saturday night fights growing up.”

Baca’s father introduced him to boxing to teach him self-discipline as Baca was not very focused in school, he said.

“Ever since then I just stuck with it,” Baca said. “I’ve been adapting to it skill wise, heart wise and things like that brought me here now.”

Not only did introducing his son to boxing introduce him to his future career the self-discipline he learned through boxing helped Baca with school as well.

“I moved to different schools while I was training.. and ever since then I have been extremely focused and I graduated with 3.0 so it helped me out a lot,” he said.  

While most of Baca’s amature fights were in Arizona, all of his professional fights have been in New Mexico.

“It’s a big difference between the amateur league to the professional,” Baca said. “The amateur league is a school house and where you see yourself in the sport and well you know once you step up to the pro rinks then you learn the business side of it because it is a business. So it’s a big leap and a tough atmosphere.”

Baca has had multiple memorable fights both as an amateur and professional. His fights as a amateur have stood out to him as those were fights where he second guessed himself, he said.

During those moments Baca said he told himself to just stick through it and committed himself to working harder next time and learn from his mistakes.

In his amateur career Baca has had 18-19 amateur fights which isn’t much as a lot of others, but he noted that he has never been knocked out or been dropped. A fact he hopes continues in his professional career.

Baca’s family has been supportive throughout his career even when they have been worried about him getting hurt, he said.

“There has been times where my family’s been very emotional towards it (boxing career) they’ve been scared or they second-guess me being in the sport just for the fact that they don’t want me to be hurt which is understandable,” Baca said.

Despite this Baca’s family has found ways to be there for him both emotionally and physically. His father being his first manager and his mother and her family flying to New Mexico to support him in his fights.

“I can’t complain,” Baca said. “I’ve been really blessed with my family.”

In the beginning of his professional career Baca was being managed by his father alone but Baca has as of recent received a second manager with many connections in the community, he said.  

“It’s always best to be around people you know and have them support you because when you know a lot of people it’s much easier, it’s much better for you as well.  They get the name out and they can help explore who you are,” he said. “Now I feel like it’s skyrocketing more than ever.”

Baca has emphasized that as a sport boxing has a uniqueness to it that can not be shared by other sports.

“The sport, the victory overall at the end of this fight, it’s all on you. You’re the only one in the ring and that’s why I enjoy hearing the saying ‘you can play basketball but you can’t play boxing’,” he said.