The customer hadn’t forgotten what he’d seen: A 6ft 3ins left-handed junior middleweight prospect dismantling his foe by fourth-round knockout.
“You’re his doppelganger,” the young man getting his haircut remarked to Kevin Anton, who works up to 10-hour days as a barber at G’s Barbershop in Lancaster, California.
“You mean, this guy?” Anton asked while displaying theYouTube highlights.
“Yeah, you look just like him,” the customer said.
“That’s me,” Anton said.
Reached Tuesday, just more than a week from his second consecutive bout at Orange Show Events Center in San Bernardino, California, the 13-0 (12 KOs) Anton had just finished another cut.
On July 18, a 27-year-old on the cusp of entering the top-15 rankings at 154lbs, Anton meets Mexico’s Vladimir Hernandez, 17-7 (7 KOs), a rugged southpaw who has been in the ring with former champion Israil Madrimov, former title challenger Alfredo Angulo and top-ranked contender Jesus Ramos Jnr.
The bout stands as the co-main event on ProBoxTV’s card headlined by a junior welterweight tilt pitting Bryan Flores versus Jonathan Navarro.
“[Hernandez] is definitely a tough fighter. He’s not a pushover. He’s not someone too weak to overlook. So I’ve got to go in there with the right game plans, stick to that game plan and do my thing,” Anton said. “Go out there and be myself and do what I’ve been training to do.
“Vladimir is a good fighter. He’s a perfect fighter for me to kind of test myself and really showcase the different tools that I have in my arsenal. I’m really an action fighter, going all out and really throwing punches in bunches, but hopefully, we stick to the game plan on this fight and I’m able to show you guys a little more.”
Anton has been a pro fighter since 2019, and he’s cut hair professionally for the last three years, explaining there are comparisons in the disciplines and attention to detail.
“There’s always something to learn, always different techniques that you can be using and taking,” Anton said. “But as far as the basics of [being a barber] and the fundamentals, I got it down.
“Anything that you do in life, I feel like the rules of boxing kind of translate in that. As far as barbering, it was learning something from the very beginning, the fundamentals first. You can’t just jump into a haircut, you can’t just jump into the ring. You’ve got to learn the techniques. You’ve got to learn what to do right, and why you’re doing it. Taking it step by step and little by little, everything comes together and then you have your whole game plan in boxing, or your whole technique in barbering down pat.”
Riding a string of three consecutive knockouts and stoppages since his March 2025 ProBoxTV debut, Anton was looking forward to his March 21 appearance in San Bernardino under WBC interim super-middleweight champion Lester Martinez’s victory over Immanuwel Aleem.
Martinez, from Guatemala, drew a sellout crowd to the venue, and Anton had recently discovered he has Guatemalan roots, so his flag-waving entry won widespread support during his introduction.
Providing just a taste of his skill, Anton whacked Uzbekistan’s Kudratillo Abdukakhorov late in the first round with a head shot and the veteran complained of head pain between rounds, holding his head in discomfort.
The fight was waved over, Anton declared the victor by knockout and the crowd was confused.
“Not that it was bad, because we got the [result] that we wanted, but it was kind of a letdown, as far as performance, because I wanted to go out there and show who Kevin Anton was and what I could really do, especially in front of the amazing Guatemala crowd that we had that night,” Anton said.
“It was set up perfect for me to go out there and show it and since I couldn’t really show it, it just really left a bad taste in my mouth. So hopefully, this time, we’re able to go out there and really perform how we wanted to perform back in that last fight.”
Anton is being banked upon by ProBoxTV as one of its principle players as the promotion moves to monthly cards and a tightened stable of title contenders.
“It’s really a blessing. It’s an honor to even have them consider me or acknowledge me as [such a touted fighter],” Anton said. “Starting from my pro career, it’s an amazing feeling to actually have a promotion and actually have a team behind me who’s supporting me 100 per cent and trying to lift me up as high as it can.”
Anton said he knows his boxing success will soon have him set barbering aside, but he also dreams of one day opening his own shop.
To eliminate the confusion over who he is, he now has pinned up posters of him fighting near his chair.
“I feel like it’s a smart move, putting my eggs in different baskets,” Anton said. “Creating businesses from different different ends, not just having one basket of everything that I put into…
“I understand where people come from saying, ‘Oh, you have to give everything you’ve got to boxing or nothing at all. I totally get that, and that’s exactly what I’m doing, but I also want to put my finances in different spots, as well, so it’ll all make money for me.”
