Justin Peñaranda paid the cost to keep his boxing dream alive

CARTERET, N.J. — Justin Peñaranda still remembers the moment his mother found out that he was boxing. How could he ever forget?

The 13-year-old had been training in secret, knowing that his Christian pastor parents would never approve of their son becoming a fighter. Peñaranda’s neighbor, former heavyweight boxer Victor Bisbal, who retired in 2020 with a pro record of 23-5 (17 knockouts), took the young man under his wing, training him every day at Cholo Espada Boxing Club in Salinas, Puerto Rico. To explain away where he’d go after school, Peñaranda told his parents he would be going to a fitness gym to lift weights. “Your penis is gonna stay small!,” his mother would caution, but where Peñaranda was going, he wouldn’t have to worry if that old wives tale held true.

Shortly before his first fight, Peñaranda’s conscience got the better of him. He asked his trainer if he could call his mom to break the news that her son was learning how to box, not lifting weights. Before Peñaranda could finish his workout, his mother was at the gym.

“I was jumping rope and in the mirror I saw my mom came in to the gym. She came straight at me and started spanking me with the jump rope,” remembers Peñaranda, now 25. 

“After that my trainer talked to her and she told me, ‘I’m gonna let you box because when I was young I used to dance and my mom didn’t let me dance.’ Since then I never stopped.”

Since then, it’s been Justin who has been dishing out the spankings. The Bayonne, N.J. resident is a 5-time New Jersey state open class amateur champion with approximately 83 bouts under his belt. Now Peñaranda is ready to make the leap to the professional ranks, with his pro debut set for this Saturday, December 21 at the Performing Arts Center in Carteret, N.J. Peñaranda will face Philadelphia’s Desmond Carr (0-1) in a four-round lightweight bout on the card, which is promoted by R&B Promotions.

For Peñaranda, the third time was the charm, as his two previous dates for his pro debut fell by the wayside. Those delays mean he will have been out of the ring for 14 months, having last competed in October of 2023.

“I always stay in the gym, I always stay prepared. At the beginning I was a little bit upset because I didn’t know much about the business but now a lot of people reached out like look this happens often so you just have to stay prepared mentally and physically. I know God’s timing is perfect,” said Peñaranda, a rangy, 5’10” boxer-puncher who can control the action from the outside but feels just as comfortable being aggressive and mixing it up in close.

Born in Paterson, N.J. on November 30, 1999, Peñaranda lived in New Jersey for two years before relocating to Salinas, a beach town on the southern end of Puerto Rico. Peñaranda competed all over Puerto Rico as an amateur, winning two national titles, including the Copa de Cidra tournament at 114 pounds in 2016 and the Copa Cheo Aponte at 123 pounds the following year.

After his parents split, Peñaranda moved with his mother to Florida, but found it hard to box because there were no gyms in his area. He stayed put for a few months, finishing high school in 2018 before shifting his focus back to boxing. His father advised him to move back to New Jersey, where there is no shortage of boxing gyms, and he was back in the ring within a month of returning to the state where he was born.

Now Peñaranda is trained and managed by Bobby Rooney, a former pro who runs the Bayonne Recreation Gym and also guides junior middleweight contender Robert Terry. Peñaranda connected with Rooney by accident – a car accident that is – after Peñaranda could no longer make the 90-minute drive to Teaneck, where he had been training before wrecking his car. Bisbal told him to reach out to Rooney instead, and the two have worked well together since 2022.

“I started training with Bobby and I liked it, we started getting sparring and the chemistry was there. He liked the way I worked and we accomplished a lot together,” said Peñaranda, who counts Gerald McClellan, Andy Cruz, Subriel Matias and Felix Trinidad among his favorite boxers.

Aside from his amateur experience, Peñaranda has also gotten plenty of experience in the gym, sparring a number of professional boxers, including 2020 Olympic gold medalist Andy Cruz down in Philadelphia.

“Sparring with Andy Cruz is amazing. I felt like I had been in the ring with him before because Andy Cruz was one of my favorite fighters. I had watched him a lot, like years before I even got in the ring with him. That’s one of the fighters that I watched the most because he was one of the best amateurs in the world,” said Peñaranda.

Peñaranda took a whooping before he even got in the ring. Now he doesn’t plan to quit until he makes all his sacrifices count.

“Some stuff that motivates me to stick to this boxing game is accomplishing my goals, which is to be a world champion. I started this because I wanted to be a world champion, to prove a lot of people wrong. A lot of people didn’t believe in me at the beginning but I’m the type of person who will never quit. I have many opportunities to quit but I can’t, it’s not me. I’m gonna keep going until I accomplish what I gotta accomplish,” said Peñaranda.

Saturday’s card will be headlined by a cruiserweight bout between Paul Bamba and former title challenger Rogelio “Porky” Medina, with local prospects Jean Pierre Valencia, Danny Gonzalez and Muhammad Noori in action on the undercard.