This article considers sport as a locus for US Latino ethnoracial identity formations. To suggest a dialogue between everyday practices and academic discourses, it first examines professional boxing on a theoretical level as a network of spatio-bodily power dynamics; it then discusses the life story and legal case of world champion Jesus ‘El Matador’ Chávez. A Mexican national who grew up in the USA, Chávez was twice deported before winning his legal case against the US Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in November 2000. Through his story, the article problematizes identity formations within various spatial frameworks – such as the city, the prison, the ring and USA–Mexico national borders. It also considers how the boxing body is both linked to power relations and how, through its own agency, it contests those relations. Ultimately, Chávez’s case exemplifies the fluidity of identity formations, the incongruency of many identity signifiers, and how, simultaneously, identity formations have a necessary strategic and political function.