Henderson resident Alex Maldonado’s professional boxing debut on Saturday night in Louisville will be quite different from that of his father’s.
“When I turned pro, I wasn’t living right,” Daniel Maldonado said in an interview. “I was drinking, smoking.
“I was at somebody’s trailer playing video games when somebody said, ‘Do you want to go pro this Saturday?’” he recalled. His buddies quickly encouraged him to do so, and so he did.
By contrast, Alex “showed me something I didn’t do. He’s stayed sober … He’s eating right and eating smart” and training five to seven days a week.
That’s not by accident. Daniel Maldonado is frank about having made mistakes as a young man, even serving a stint in prison, and how he’s turned around his life.
“I use that as a guide” for raising his kids, he said. “It’s a map. It’s like the Bible — it’s a map, if we just read the doggone thing.”
While the elder Maldonado made youthful mistakes, he certainly knew how to box. He amassed a pro record of 21-2 during a career as a featherweight that ran from 2000 to 2008. He won 13 of those fights by knockouts.
He won the Kentucky featherweight title in 2002, then went on to win the World Boxing Council’s Latino feather title and North American Boxing Association’s feather title in 2004. His career culminated with winning the International Boxing Association’s world feather title in 2006. A native of East Chicago, Indiana, he was inducted into the Indiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2022.
Alex followed his father into the ring, posting an amateur record of 40-13 and reaching the semifinals of the USA Boxing Eastern Elite Qualifier in 2019 before losing to a No. 3-ranked opponent in a judge’s decision that his father disputes to this day. Had he reached the finals, he would have been eligible to compete in the U.S. Olympic trials.
Alex last fought two years ago. “He was burned out,” his father said.
But six months or so ago, Alex said he wanted to fight professionally.
“He said, ‘Dad, I’m tired of fighting amateurs. I’m going to (go professional) with or without you,’” the elder Maldonado said.
Alex has been training with his father ever since. “He’s been putting in all the right work,” Daniel said.
Alex’s pro debut will take place at a Fight Night event organized by Louisville promoter Nicholas Bareis’ company, Superstars of Boxing, with a card featuring 10 fights.
The fights will take place at The Bourbon Hall event venue at 116 W. Jefferson St. in downtown Louisville. Doors open at 6 p.m. Eastern time, with the first bell at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets are $50 for general admission, $75 for ringside seats or $600 for a table of eight. Tickets are available at Eventbrite.com or by calling (502) 541-1063. Tickets might also be available at the door.
Daniel Maldonado is helping sponsor the event through his Henderson-based company, Maldonado Roofing & Siding. He said he’s sold some $6,500 worth of tickets to friends and supporters, which should help ensure a robust number of rooters in a venue that he said can hold up to 2,200 spectators.
Alex, now 24, is five-foot-five (“with shoes on,” he said) and expects to weigh in at 118 pounds. His opponent, Janis Cook of Kalamazoo, Michigan, is three inches taller, but he said that doesn’t worry him. “I’ve been fighting taller people all my life. I’ll just focus on fighting smart.”
Cook also is left-handed, which poses a different challenge. But Daniel said he sparred and fought with multiple southpaws during his career and is advising his son on how to position himself to land punches.
Alex will also be fighting with eight-ounce gloves, which deliver a bigger blow than the larger gloves he fought with as an amateur.
“People say I’m fast,” he said. “It will be interesting to see how fast I am with eight-ounce gloves.”
The pro rounds last three minutes each (with one minute in between), which is one minute longer than amateur rounds, and the fight will last up to four rounds instead of the amateurs’ three rounds. All that demands a different strategy for a boxer.
“Amateurs go as fast they can go,” Daniel Maldonado said. Longer and more rounds require a professional fighter to be more selective with their offense. “We’re going to be smarter,” he said. “He’s been frustrated with me” for insisting that he be more careful in “picking the right shots.”
Through this journey, the elder Maldonado has told him, “You’ve got to show me you mean this.
“A loss would be a major setback,” he said. “He’s got to give 100%. I don’t want him to lose,” but whatever the outcome, “I want him to give 100%.”
More pro fights have been lined up for Alex, including Oct. 25 in Jackson, Tennessee; Jan. 16, 2026 in Cleveland; and a date to be determined in February 2026 in Evansville. Eventually, his father would like to arrange for him to fight in Henderson, if the right venue can be found.
If all goes well, Daniel Maldonado said promoter Bareis has said he’ll arrange a title fight for Alex after four to eight pro fights.
“We’ll be looking for a sponsor soon,” the father said, though that likely won’t happen “until he gets the name, until he gets a big crowd following him.”
“Hopefully we can get a lot of the community behind him.”
Daniel Maldonado’s nickname as a fighter was The Sandman (because he put so many opponents to “sleep”). The younger Maldonado goes by The Real Deal. “I’m going to show I really put people to sleep,” Alex said.
“He’s more motivated than he ever was,” his father said. “He’s got an iron chin, but I don’t want him to have to use it.”
Also, “Hopefully he won’t get cut. When you get cut, it’s 100 days” of healing before he can fight again.
“He’s ready for whatever,” Daniel said. “I’m excited to see it happen.”
While he said his son has led a cleaner, more disciplined life than he did, Maldonado said he hopes Alex can replicate what he did to his first professional opponent back in 2000.
“I knocked him out in the first round.”