Allentown fighters Gustavo Morales, Ruben Rodriguez featured on Red Owl Boxing card at Archer Music Hall

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Two undefeated Allentown-area boxers will fight on home soil Friday night when Red Owl Boxing brings its 10-bout “Boxfest XVIII” card to Archer Music Hall, the promotion’s second professional event in downtown Allentown in less than two months.

Super welterweight Gustavo Morales of Allentown (4-0, 3 KOs) and welterweight Ruben Rodriguez of Whitehall Township (6-0, 6 KOs) headline the local contingent on a card topped by a World Boxing Association Continental Americas super featherweight title defense between champion Deonte “Lay ‘Em Down” Brown (17-0, 11 KOs) of Morgan City, La., and Yohan “La Fiera” Vasquez (26-6, 21 KOs), a Dominican-born contender out of the Bronx.

The main card streams live on DAZN beginning at 8 p.m., following a preliminary card on Red Owl Boxing’s YouTube channel starting at 5:30 p.m. Doors at Archer Music Hall, at 939 Hamilton St., open at 4:30 p.m.

Friday’s card lands as professional sports continue to push into downtown Allentown. Earlier this month, the owners of the American Hockey League’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms unveiled the Lehigh Valley Spirits, a Major Arena Soccer League expansion franchise that will begin play at PPL Center on Dec. 5.

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Red Owl Boxing’s April debut at Archer was the venue’s first sporting event since opening, and the Houston-based promotion has signaled it intends to make the Lehigh Valley a recurring stop.

“We came to Allentown with the idea of two shows,” Red Owl Boxing CEO Greg Bloom said in a phone interview. “On the last show, we had some other Pennsylvania-based talent, and we didn’t have enough room to accommodate everyone from the area on just one card. So we thought we’d be best served to split it up into two events.”

Bloom, who joined Red Owl Boxing as CEO earlier this year, said the company is building toward a permanent home in Houston but plans to keep traveling to fighter-dense markets in the interim.

He cited Pennsylvania and the corridor running from Philadelphia through Allentown, Reading, Scranton, and Harrisburg as a hotbed of professional prospects. Red Owl’s matchmaker, James Bartley, is based in Reading.

“We tried to find something as centrally focused as possible, and we also wanted to find a location that may not get as much mainstream boxing passing through, because we wanted to give something back to the fans who may not have the opportunity to always see a show of this caliber,” Bloom said.

Morales, 32, was born in Mexico and moved to the United States at 16. He owns a local construction business and trains at Show Stoppers Boxing Gym in Allentown under coach David Hamilton. He said he first laced up gloves in 2021 to lose weight — he was around 220 pounds at the time — and later that year found his way to the Golden Gloves.

“It’s just a challenge, you know? It’s like a challenging thing for yourself, and just to be able to get in there and show your skills,” Morales said. “More than a sport, it’s like an art.”

Friday will be Morales’ second fight since returning from a roughly two-year layoff. He fought on the April 3 Red Owl card at Archer, his first bout since 2023.

“I trained very hard the whole eight-week schedule that I do,” Morales said. “Hopefully, we come out with a great show for the fans and with the victory.”

Morales faces Travis Floyd (4-19-2, 1 KO) of Douglasville, Ga., in a four-round super welterweight bout on the preliminary card.

Rodriguez, who also trains at Show Stoppers under Hamilton, is undefeated in six pro fights, all by knockout. He meets Corey Grant (0-2-2) of Mesa, Ariz., in a four-round welterweight bout. Bloom said Rodriguez is expected to open the show.

“Ruben Rodriguez — he’s a power puncher, 6, 6 knockouts,” Bloom said. “He’s going to be probably opening the show, so it’ll be very exciting.”

The card also features several other Pennsylvania-based fighters that Bloom highlighted. Among them: undefeated super lightweight Angel “Sharpie” Perez (10-0, 8 KOs) of Harrisburg, who is coming off a first-round TKO at Red Owl’s October title-fight card in California, and Harrisburg heavyweight Rishon Sims, a multi-time USA Boxing national champion and youth international gold medalist who will make his professional debut on the preliminary card.

Both Perez and Sims train out of Capital Punishment Boxing Club in Harrisburg.

Super bantamweight David Garcia (6-0, 5 KOs), 17, is also on the card. The teenage prospect was signed by former two-division world champion Danny Garcia last fall, who launched his own promotional venture in 2025.

Scranton-based super welterweight Cahir “The Gael” Gormley (2-0, 1 KO), a two-time Irish national amateur champion from Derry, Northern Ireland, who trains at the Irish Boxing Club, rounds out the regional contingent.

The co-main event pits middleweight Nikoloz Sekhniashvili (10-2, 7 KOs), a native of Gori, Georgia, now training in South Florida, against Ivan Dancha (6-1, 3 KOs), a Ukrainian-born fighter who won the 2015 Ukrainian national amateur championship.

Red Owl Boxing was founded in 2021 by Canadian entrepreneur Gabriel Fanous. Bloom said the company’s model is built around competitive matchmaking — leaning toward what he called “50-50 fights” rather than padding records — and on giving prospects a televised platform earlier in their careers.

Asked what he wanted Lehigh Valley readers to take from his story, Morales pointed to his 8-year-old son and to the kids watching at home.

“I would like to tell the youngest kids, focus on their dreams and work hard. Education first, and then all the dreams can come true,” he said.

Tickets start at $93 and are available through Ticketmaster and the Archer Music Hall box office. The fight card is subject to change.