Alfonso Gomez
(Alfonso Salvador Gómez Becerra
) (born October 28, 1980) is a professional boxer and competitor on reality TV show The Contender, where he ended up ranked third out of sixteen fighters.
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Personal life
Gomez was born in
Guadalajara, Jalisco,
Mexico, but his parents subsequently moved to the city of
Napa, California where he graduated in 1998 from Napa High and (later)
Tustin, California, partly so as to enable Alfonso to go to college and continue boxing. He had started
boxing at age 10, and had an amateur record of 80 wins and 10 losses. He was managed along the way by his father, an ex-boxer himself. He has two brothers.
Boxing career
He fought and lost to
Ishe Smith in 2001 and he would later become the roommate of Smith on reality TV show
The Contender. On the show, he was placed on the
West Coast
team (as was Ishe) and challenged the high-ranked Peter Manfredo in the first fight. He beat the then undefeated Rhode Islander in a shock fight, although that wasn't the end of Peter.
In the quarterfinals, he beat
Ahmed Khaddour (who had been bought back in to replace
Juan de la Rosa). The Semi Final round saw him up against Manfredo (who had been brought back in to replace
Jeff Fraza) again, a fight Manfredo was very keen on. This time round however, the man from Guadalajara lost. He may take some consolation from having beaten Brinkley in the 3rd Place Fight, which guaranteed him a nice packet of prize money—and the whole experience catapulted him to a world ranking of 21 out of 861. However, he has never fought outside of four southwestern states:
Nevada,
Colorado,
Texas,
California.
Since the end of the Contender series, Gomez has been undefeated through six fights (including one on
The Contender Challenge: UK vs. USA, as noted below). He defeated
Jesse Brinkley, also of Contender fame, by unanimous decision on
May 24,
2005. He fought Luciano Perez on
October 15,
2005 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and won by
TKO. He also fought Jesse Feliciano to a draw on
May 5,
2006 at the
Aladdin Resort in
Las Vegas, Nevada.
Alfonso Gomez was a part of the Contender Challenge: UK vs USA, where he was pitted against
Martin Concepcion on
March 30,
2007. Alfonso won due to TKO from an uppercut, late in the 7th round.
Most recently, Gomez defeated
Arturo Gatti on
July 14,
2007 via 7th round TKO, then just three months later he outpointed
Ben Tackie in a unanimous decision in Carson, California on
October 16,
2007.
Gomez has always expressed a desire to become World Champion. He is still managed and coached by his father, Alfonso Gómez, Sr.
Gomez lost his last fight against
Miguel Cotto by TKO on
April 12,
2008 after the ring-side doctor declared him unable to continue after receiving several blows from Cotto.