Ruben Villa isn’t retired, but admits the spark hasn’t returned

Featherweight Ruben Villa has spent 22 years boxing. At 27, Villa says he feels like he has always been boxing. His boxing career has meant he has had to develop a lot of discipline which means dieting and training nearly always. 

In July he lost his second professional fight via unanimous decision. The loss was to Sulaiman Segawa and the fight took place at the Palms Casino and Resort in Las Vegas.

After each fight, Villa has felt a spark return after a tough training camp. After this loss to Segawa, however, the spark didn’t come back. Did the bell ring for the final time for Villa? Right now, that remains uncertain, but it is possible that he is nearing the end of his career.

“With these last few training camps, I just slowly started feeling a little less energy and enthusiasm towards training,” Villa said. “I feel like the business side of boxing was what made me fall out of love with boxing.”

Villa can’t point a finger to any one thing that happened, but a career that started in July 2016 has seen eight straight years of fighting. Villa, one of the best amateurs of his era, found the pros difficult; not in transitioning his boxing style, but in managing the business side of things. When he was an amateur, it was simple. He’d sign up for a tournament and fight the fighters put in front of him.

“Making fights, the rankings, how people are ranked, when you get the call to fight, it’s all a lot. Just the whole concept of the business side of boxing is difficult to adjust to.”

Villa wishes boxing could be much more informal, but he knows money changes things.

“If someone just called me and said, ‘Hey, you want to fight this guy, on this day,’ I’d be there,” Villa said. “I would love it if it worked that way. But unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.”

As a pro, it was a slow climb. He was ranked No.1 in the featherweight division. Yet, he couldn’t land a title fight, given the log-jam with the WBC featherweight title. With each announced fight feeling like a lateral move, his passion drifted from the sport. No longer was he the eager, bright-eyed fighter who echoed “The Mamba Mentality” ahead of his title fight with Emanuel Navarrete. Now he was a hardened veteran who felt like he was waiting in a long-line to get a title and the possibility of a big check. 

“I was winning the fights I was getting, and still stuck in the same spot,” Villa said. “It was getting so frustrating.”

Meanwhile, Villa found a new love –– coaching. While his athletic career felt stagnant, he began to value being a role model. It also started to coincide with him becoming a father. On July 7, his daughter, Maya, was born. Villa had spent his whole life boxing and training in his hometown of Salinas, California. After the birth of his daughter, his whole life wasn’t just boxing. He was a father, a gym owner and a full-time fighter. When he left for camps that his team would hold in Riverside, California at Robert Garcia’s Boxing Academy, that meant he’d be away from his daughter.

“Boxing is hard by itself,” Villa said. “Then if you want to be a good father and be there for your children, it is almost impossible.”

Adversity also hit home after his loss. Villa’s trainer, Max Garcia, passed away this fall. The loss of his beloved coach stung just as much as his loss in the ring. 

“Losing Max was pretty hard,” Villa said. “Seeing your coach every day, bullshitting, teaching you stuff, just being at the gym, just being around him every day, and then all of a sudden, you don’t get to see him anymore. It has been tough.”

Max’s son, Sam Garcia, watched Villa’s whole professional career up close. He served as the second-assist in the corner. Garcia shared his lasting memory of Villa. 

“I would say it is his self-discipline,” Garcia said of Villa. “He is the type of guy that if you tell him to come to the gym at 10 AM, he is there at 9:30 AM. We used to actually have games where we’d try to beat each other to the gym.” 

Now, Villa sits in downtown Salinas, California, on South Main Street, to be exact, at his DRAC4 Boxing Gym (coined from being Ruben Villa IV and his nickname from the amateurs which was Drac, short for Dracula). He entered boxing for the glory of titles, but he might have left it with a sense of community. 

“Some people might think taking a break from boxing is a negative thing, but it’s really a positive thing. He wants to constantly be in his daughter’s life,” Garcia said.

“This is pretty much my job now,” Villa said. “Being around all the kids who come and want to learn a box. I like hearing all the different stories. I have just fallen in love with being a coach right now.”

What Villa, who has a professional boxing record of 22-2 (7 KOs), enjoys the most is the humility of boxing. Rarely do people just pick boxing up. Getting punched in the face is awkward and tough.  

On if he ever takes another pro fight, Villa simply said the following: 

“If the spark comes. Usually after my fight I’ll take a week off and the spark comes back. I started thinking about how I could do better. Honestly, after my last fight, I took a week off, and the spark didn’t come back,” Villa said. “If I don’t take a fight, I’ll just enjoy this part of my life. I dedicated my whole life to boxing, for 27 years. I want to see what it’s like to be normal.”