When Terence "Bud" Crawford made history Saturday night, becoming the undisputed middleweight champion, he shared the spotlight with a childhood friend who performed as he walked to the ring.
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The viral moment wasn't just an introduction—it was a vibrant celebration of friendship and Omaha's unique spirit.
Rosendo Robles, who has known Crawford since they were kids, got the call for what he said is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
"It felt great, and I've known Bud since we were, you know, 11, 10, 11-12 years old, and he called me all of a sudden. I was out doing a gig, and he called me all of a sudden, and he said, hey, you know, you know this song? The movie Desperado, and I said, yeah," Robles said.
Robles brought together a group of musicians for the performance, with the youngest performer being a sophomore in high school; none had ever played in front of 70,000 people before.
"I took it upon myself to reach out to every each one of each one of these gentlemen here, a lot of them I know and a lot of them I trust, so I gave them each a call and fortunately they all had time, they all made time on their busy schedules and we all came together and did something great," Robles said.
For guitarist Marcos Mora, the opportunity represented something bigger than just a performance.
"Dream that everyone was able to do this and I think it gives people hope and right now you know there's just a little bit of dark times going on but so this really gives our community hope and it's like wow, we're really proud of you guys so this is really, really cool and we have a really vibrant Latino music scene that a lot of people don't know about that's popping here in South Omaha. It's almost like an underground movement that people don't know, so hopefully now the world now knows that wow, check out these musicians because there's so much going on," Mora said.
The experience still feels surreal for many of the performers.
"I think it's just something crazy for South Omaha to go all the way to Las Vegas and perform in one of the biggest fights, uh, in, in this, this year, and honestly it's, it's, I still don't feel it, it's surreal and it's just like Marco said, it just gives hope to me and to all the younger musicians here that we can do it, um, that if you keep grinding and keep working and don't give up," Adán Rodriguez said.
Victor Cebrero described the moment when the magnitude of the event hit him.
"Well, it still hasn't hit me that we were at such a big event. But as soon as I saw the size of the stadium, there was a little bit of nervousness, but it actually fueled me," Cebrero said.
After Crawford's victory, the group connected with the champion to celebrate.
"The next day after the fight, I did talk to him, we FaceTime for a few minutes and he said, you know, he was really happy with how everything went down from the performance to his victory and you know I told him how proud I was of him and I told him how thankful I was of him and we all thanked him through uh FaceTime and we all told him how thankful we were that he gave us that platform, we were excited," Robles said.
Back in Omaha, dozens of people gathered around to watch KMTV's interview with the musicians, grateful for an opportunity to see these hometown heroes who represented their community on one of boxing's biggest stages.
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