Henry Deleon

Henry is a trainer and avid photographer. He has gone on to shoot many times for Suzi Wong in New York inside and outside the Mendez gym. He has the cutest puppy Koto and his wife Sarah is an amateur boxer.

MENDEZ GYM, NYC

We met Henry Deleon by chance. We were in New York for the Linares v Cano fight and at the weigh-in, I got a tap on my shoulder, are you ‘Suzi Wong’ it was the start of a great friendship.  Henry gave me a Jorge Linares t-shirt his wife Sarah had purchased for him off the website and asked me to get Jorge to sign it. Over the “post weight-in, pasta and steak meal”, I got Jorge to sign his shirt.

Linares had been training at the Mendez gym, that Henry works out of, whilst in the city.  I was lucky enough to go to the Mendez to watch Jorge work out and let me tell you, this gym is HOT.  Set off a busy street, the reception is small, you go back and climb down a set of narrow concrete steps to enter. It’s an amazing experience, the heat hits you, you look around two full size rings, various coaches training people, boxing bags hanging everywhere.  

The Legendary Mendez Boxing Gym has become a great source of training pictures that Henry has taken for us of various fighters and characters entering the gym, willing to wear our product for a shoot. 

I sent Henry a text and told him I had the t-shirt signed and he met me and gave me one of the Mendez Gym t-shirts as a gift.  

The fight didn’t go Jorge’s way, a shock defeat to Cano and we left New York with our heads low, but a smile knowing we had made a great friend. 

HENRY's PHOTOGRPAHY

What is your inspiration?

Funny enough, it was actually watching the “Rocky” movies that inspired me to get into Boxing. Just watching how he overcame adversity by working hard and literally fighting through it all with nothing but his two hands was admirable. It was heroic and what kid at the age of like 7 wouldn’t wish to be a superhero. Rocky in my eyes was a superhero, but not in a superman/batman kind of way, but in a more relatable way. He was a normal guy doing things the average person wouldn’t do. Even just watching how the crowd all cheered and yelled “Rocky! Rocky! Rocky!” definitely had me, at that age fantasizing with the thought of it being me one day that people cheered for. I wanted all of that.  Fast forward to today, I am now a boxing instructor/coach. I work together with my coach, Moises Sanchez, as his second. Together we have quite the stable of female fighters who are pretty baddass. Among them is my wife, who I’ve been leading as her head coach. And basically, what inspires me now is that I just want them to be the best they can be. Forget about winning or losing fights (obviously we always fight to win) I want them to be able to attain a level of confidence and skill in where they are able to handle themselves no matter the obstacle. Keeping that same level of confidence when things aren’t going their way so they can learn to dig deep when the time calls for it. Teaching them that they are not average, they’re beyond it.
Henry Delon
Henry Deleon

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