The Matador Boxing Team attended a series of open signup fights at the Eddie Hereda Boxing Club in East Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon that resulted in one win and one loss.

Of the 17 members of the team, only four went to the fights and only two boxers that were there actually had an opportunity to get in the ring, due to the lack of open sign-ups and weight division match-ups.

Since its inception in April of 2007, the Matador Boxing Team has been training and prepping their fighters to be ready and capable to deal with the all too real experience of setting foot in the ring. This relatively unheard of program at CSUN does nothing less than produce results as far as qualified fighters are concerned. The proof of this was in a firsthand demonstration by Marshall Richey and Matthew Jaime.

Despite the fact that each of these matches was only three rounds of two minutes each, with only a minute between rounds, these were fights that amounted to nothing less than true grit endurance and dedicated pugilist resolve.

Both in the ring for their first amateur bout, Richey and Jaime gave outstanding performances. They were quick, accurate and to the point.

All in all there were about ten fights on Sunday, with weight classes ranging from Mini Flyweight to Light Heavyweight.

Richey was the first of the Matador Boxing Team to fight. The 25-year-old Richey weighed in at 180 pounds. His opponent, a member of the Santa Ana Boxing Club, was 18-year-old Talatonu Amauth, who weighed in at 176 pounds.

When the fight began, both fighters seemed ready and waiting, but Richey seemed more composed.

First to make the attack was Amauth. He was fast and seemed to get in a few good left hooks, but Richey was on his finest guard. Not too fast, and certainly not too slow, Richey played a perfect defense, with a steady amount of blocking and maneuvering to ward off his opponents overbearing offense.

By the second round both fighters were a little more aware of the others abilities. In this round Richey and Amauth raised their rate of attack, but as before, Richey was too mindful of his own blocking capability.

The highlight of this round came when Richey had Amatu pinned in the corner and landed a barrage of hits to his body, and then topped it off with a left hook. The retaliation by Amauth was swift and included a straight-right punch and a right hook, but the blocking capability by Richey was too good.

The final round started out with Richey landing an uppercut that dazed Amauth and made him fall back a step or two. Amauth returned the favor and landed a right hook that put Richey in the ropes. Immediate maneuvering and dodging let Richey get back into the fight. It was in the third minute of the third round that Richey laid down some devastating blows, a combination of two right hooks and a left hook that no doubt led to his victory.

According to Richey, even though he won the fight, there was still something to learn from this experience.

“He was faster and hit harder than I had expected,” Richey said. “He was a tough kid.”

The last fight of the afternoon was between 27-year-old Jaime, who weighed in at 142 pounds, and 20-year-old Aztec Boxing Club member, Karpis Burushyan, who weighed in at 148 pounds.

There were three rounds but everything was happening so fast that it seemed like only one. Both fighters were at the top of their game and at each others throats. Burushyan seemed to be faster, but Jaime was ready for all advances.

The amount of blocking was almost even with the amount of punches being thrown. If one guy was throwing a punch, the other guy was ready to block it.

In the first round both fighters landed left and right hooks. Jaime did his best to move around the bombardment of brawl that came to him from Burushyan, but there were just some punches that he could not get around.

The second round was very similar to the first. Both fighters were equipped and ready, and made the other think twice about how to go about their respective attacks. A few hard hitting blows by Burushyan caused Jaime to slip and retaliate with a few jabs and a straight left punch. Burushyan came back with an outbreak of punches that seemed to be ineffective on Jaime.

The third round saw Jaime a little more adept and ready for attack. The key words here would be stick and move. Picking up on Burushyan’s plan of attack, the only way Jaime could come out of this fight victorious was to hit and run.

At one point, in the last minutes of the fight, Burushyan laid down what looked to be an illegal hit on the top of Jaime’s head. The fight was stopped for an eight second count, then continued for a few remaining seconds.

Despite the tremendous effort put up by Jaime, Burushyan won the fight.

“This was real tough,” Jaime said. “This was my first fight. It was definitely an experience, and a very difficult one.”

At the end of the day it didn’t really matter who won or who lost, because with boxing, as with most things in life, it was all about the experience.

The team will travel to San Jose on March 15 for Spartan Fight Night at San Jose State.