Moisés Carrillo went to Cancún with 430 other fighters and came home a champion

Moisés Carrillo, the fighter his gym calls El Murciélago, came home to Tulum on Sunday as a Guantes Dorados champion in the Elite division up to 70 kilograms.

The twentieth Guantes Dorados ran from August 27 to 30 at the domed court of the José María Morelos sports complex in Supermanzana 70, the Cancún venue everyone knows as the Toro Valenzuela. Organizers called the turnout a record.

Fernando Barrera, who co-founded Tulum Fight Club and fights professionally out of it, sent the club's account of the weekend to The Tulum Times on September 1. Three fighters from Tulum came back with belts, according to the two teams that took them, and they came from opposite ends of how the sport is organized here: a family gym in the town center and the coaching staff at the municipal sports complex.

430 fighters, 67 gyms, four days in Cancún

The field drew 430 boxers of both genders from 67 gyms across six states: Quintana Roo, Yucatán, Campeche, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosí and Querétaro. Three rings ran at once for four days, worked by 18 judges brought in from Quintana Roo, Campeche and Yucatán.

Víctor Hugo García Sánchez, who presides over the Asociación de Boxeo Quintanarroense, told the opening ceremony that the first edition in 2006 drew 46 fighters. Organizers say the tournament has since sent boxers into the professional ranks, among them Joselito Velázquez, Miguel Ángel Berchelt and Yesenia Gómez. Quintana Roo filled this year's field from seven of its municipalities.

Tulum was one of them.

How many titles were on offer depends on which account you read. The Benito Juárez municipal government and the closing coverage in Quequi both put it at 88 championships across categories and weights. Previews published the week before, including Cancún Mío, listed 75.

The Elite belt at 70 kilograms went to Carrillo

Barrera's account names four fighters on the trip. Carrillo took the belt. Fernando Ávila and Óscar Azcorra also boxed, in bouts Barrera described as closely contested, and Carlos Alvallero traveled with the delegation without getting a fight.

Elite sits at the top of the tournament's age structure, above the Sub 13, Sub 15, Sub 17 and Sub 19 brackets. Carrillo won it at 70 kilograms, in the division where the fighters are grown men with amateur records behind them.

Writing in Spanish, Barrera said the town is no longer only building rooms with bags and rings. Local athletes are traveling now and coming back with results against gyms from other parts of Mexico.

Crisanto was not trying to build champions

The other two titles belong to fighters coached by Alfredo Crisanto, who works with the municipal selections at the Tulum sports complex. Barrera says Crisanto came back from Cancún with two champions from his team.

Twelve days before the tournament, Crisanto stood in that same complex, running a mass beginners' class, and told this publication that the point was not to produce boxers. He said the aim was to instill discipline in teenagers and keep them off the harder roads, and that a boxer's training starts around seven or eight years old, with coordination and conditioning, with competition a long way behind.

Then two of his fighters came home from a 430 fighter tournament wearing belts. Their names have not been announced yet. Organizers have not published a full list of results for the 2026 edition, so both titles come from the accounts of the teams that won them.

Tulum boxing is showing up outside the municipality

Academia 15 Rounds of Playa del Carmen won the tournament outright with seven belts, two clear of a three-way tie at five between World Champions and Kaatun, both of Benito Juárez, and the Academia de Boxeo de Chetumal. Those are programs with decades of tournament habit behind them, and Tulum's fighters were competing in that company.

Tulum Fight Club opened about 11 years ago as Tulum Fighters, run by Fernando and his father, César Barrera, a family that has lived in the town for 24 years. Most of the people who come through the door are residents after conditioning work and visitors booking a session between beach days. The competitive team is the part of the club the club has been building lately.

Some of that has been paid for by the town itself. When Barrera and Daniel Palma went to a professional card in Querétaro on August 1, close to 20 backers covered the camp and the travel: businesses around Tulum, individual supporters, and members of the international community who train at the gym. Palma won his fight on the scorecards. Four weeks later, the amateurs came back from Cancún with belts.

Boxing is not the only Tulum program on this curve. In March, the municipality's judo delegation returned from the national Tomoyoshi Yamaguchi tournament with three gold medals and five athletes classified for the Olimpiada Nacional circuit.

Guantes Dorados wants national qualifier status

The tournament's growth has drawn attention from the national federation, and organizers hope to see it recognized as a qualifying event for the Olimpiada Nacional. That would matter a great deal to a gym in Tulum. A national qualifier 90 minutes up the highway costs a fraction of what it takes to send a teenager to a tournament in another state, which is the difference between a fighter who competes twice a year and one who competes six times.

Alejandro Luna López, director of the Benito Juárez Instituto de la Cultura Física y Deporte, closed the tournament on Sunday by telling the fighters that some were leaving with a belt and others with a lesson, and pointed the whole field toward the Olimpiada Nacional CONADE 2027 cycle.

Tulum goes into that cycle with three champions, and with a coach who says he is still not trying to build fighters.

Did you follow Tulum's fighters at Guantes Dorados this weekend? Join the conversation and share your perspective with us on Instagram and Facebook at @thetulumtimes .