 A free black man named Jack Holten (played by Philip Michael Thomas) is eating lunch at Victoria s tavern. When two of the alcalde s guards start harassing him because of his race, Jack punches one of them. He is then imprisoned in the town jail for assaulting a soldier of Spain. The alcalde takes Jack s papers that prove he is free and plans to sell him to a U.S. plantation. Don Digeo and Don Alejandro know that the alcalde cannot resist a friendly wager, so they make a bet that if Jack beats the alcalde s best guard in a boxing bout, then he wins his freedom. If he loses, however, the alcalde may keep Jack in jail. The alcalde promptly picks the biggest and strongest of his guards. Don Diego suspects that there is no way that Jack can beat this monstrosity of a man, so he dons his Zorro cape and takes matters into his own hands. Zorro fights with the giant guard and causes him to injure his hand. This renders him useless to the alcalde. In his place, the alcalde picks the bumbling Sergeant Mendoza. What follows is an amusing parody of the Rocky training sequence. Jack can impressively perform difficult exercises to get ready for the fight while Mendoza can barely catch his breath. Soon afterward, the alcalde gets a notice that the local Magistrate is coming to inspect Los Angeles and see if the alcalde is doing a good job with his soldiers. If he impresses the Magistrate, he believes that he will get a promotion and transfer to Monterrey. The conditions of the fight suddenly change. Now, if Mendoza knocks out Jack, it will prove the soldiers  might and will impress the Magistate. Zorro/Don Diego jumps at the chance to get rid of the town s tyrant, so he decides to fix the fight in Mendoza s favor. He puts ether, a substance that makes people sleep, on Mendoza s boxing gloves so that Jack will inhale it and appear to be knocked out. The plan does not work, however. Jack stands up to several whiffs of ether, but Mendoza doesn t. Mendoza puts his gloves close to his face and he inhales the vapors. After he faints, the Magistrate disgustedly tells the alcalde that he will not get his transfer. The enraged alcalde then arrests Jack once more. Zorro promptly comes to his rescue and steals back the free slave s documents from the alcalde s desk. The alcalde stands there powerless as Zorro helps his friend leave town a free man.