Tijuana is hoping a Top Rank boxing event on March 28 will calm fears. BY GEORGE WILLIS

When I was growing up in Las Cruces, New Mexico, one of the things we never told our parents about was piling into a car and driving about 50 miles south across the Mexican border into Juarez. While in high school and college, my friends and I thought nothing of going to “Fred’s” our favorite bar in J-City to eat avocado sandwiches, drink beer and shoot some pool for a few hours before heading home.

Today, with all the violence in Mexico’s border cities and especially in Juarez, we’d be risking our lives doing something like that. Nearly 6,000 deaths in Mexico in 2008 were linked to the battle between drug cartels over territory and distribution routes. Civilians have been killed in the cross fire and Juarez continues to plagued by thousands of unexplained killings of women.

It’s gotten so bad the U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory in February warning Americans traveling to Mexico to be extra cautious when visiting the border towns of Juarez, Nogales and Tijuana. With tourism being vital to its economy, Tijuana hopes to use boxing to show its city is as safe as any American city.

Top Rank will be staging “Latin Fury 8: Tijuana Thunder” on March 28 at Tijuana’s Plaza de Toros Monumental. The bull ring is located about four miles from the U.S. border and tourism officials are using the pay-per-event to show crime and bloodshed isn’t rampant in the city.

“I want to assure you that Tijuana and Baja California is a safe place,” said Oscar Escobedo, the Secretary of Tourism for Baja California Mexico. “When you travel anywhere in the world and not just Baja, California, if you take just common sense it will help a lot to ensure your safety. There are two millions people in Tijuana and it’s a lot safer than New Orleans and Washington D.C. and a lot of big cities, not only in the U.S.A., but all over the world.”

The boxing is worth watching. The main event will feature Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. (38-0-1, 29 KOs), the son of legendary Mexican icon Julio Cesar Chavez, against Luciano Cuello (23-0, 10 KOs) of Argentina for the WBO Latino light middleweight title. Other bouts have WBC super featherweight champion Humberto Soto defending against Antonio “T-Rex” Davis of Atlanta; WBO bantamweight champ Fernando Montiel taking on Diego Silva of Argentina and former lightweight champion Jose Louis Castillo fighting at welterweight against Antonio Diaz.

Top Rank boss Bob

Arum has a vested interest in Mexican. He has a stable of Mexican fighters under his Top Rank banner and has already staged a number of bouts in the country. He recently signed a television deal with Spanish language Azteca America to broadcast more than 25 boxing shows a year with most of the shows to take place in Mexico. “There are a lot of opportunities to fight in Mexico,” Arum said.

Juarez used to be a fun city. Maybe Tijuana still is.