By: Bryan Zou
On June 18th, Mexico City broke the world record for most attendants of a boxing lesson. Over 14,250 people attended with 15 famous boxers teaching the lesson. The event took place at Zocalo Plaza, Mexico City.
The new record surpassed the past record by nearly five times. Attendants wore red, white, and green to represent the Mexican flag. Mariana “Barby” Juarez, Erik “El Terrible” Morales, Andy Ruiz Jr., Oscar Valdez, Jackie Nava, Humberto “Chiquita” Gonzalez, Miguel Berchelt, Jose “Pipino” Cuevas, Alfonso Zamora, Jose Luis Bueno, Jose Antonio “Jaguar” Aguirre, Ganigan Lopez, Adrian “Confesor” Hernandez, Ana Maria Torres and Alan David Picasso, all helped teach the boxing lesson.
One of the more famous boxers in this lineup is Mariana “Barby” Juarez. She was born January 29th, 1980 and has held many titles throughout her boxing career. Her younger sister, Lourdes Juarez is a world champion boxer. Mariana made her debut on May 22, 1998, where she defeated Virginia Esparez in Mexico City. She has since been rated top 10 best female boxers from many sources such as ESPN or The Ring. Being a former two-division world champion, she held the title of flyweight (being over 49 kg but under 51 kg) from 2011-2012 and held the title of bantamweight from (being over 52.2kg but under 53.5kg) from 2017 to October 2020.
Many people were excited for the event including the mayor who posted a video on twitter thanking “the champions and those who made this great triumph possible.” The event started with a tai-chi warm up followed by boxing movements. After that, combinations of moves were shown. One young attendant said, “there is a very beautiful energy – very joyful, a lot of joy” in boxing.
Mexico City’s 9 million residents’ not only hold this record, but also hold many records such as the biggest serving of packaged tacos (2,712 pounds), the most free Wi-Fi hotspots in an urban area (21,500), and many more!
Link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_Ju%C3%A1rez
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantamweight