Talkin’ MMA & Boxing with Roy Englebrecht
Published by on July 29th, 2008

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By Scoop Malinowski

Promoter Roy Englebrecht talks about his successful business philosophy, his intriguing new “American Champion” reality TV show project, Affliction Banned, and much more in this interview:

BoxingInsider.com: You have been busy promoting a lot of MMA shows lately. One of the claims you like to boast about is that you are still promoting shows while other promoters like the IFL are losing tons of money. Why are you able to remain successful as a promoter while others are flailing around in the business?

Roy Englebrecht: Deliver good shows, at good prices, in clean venues, and say thank you. Fans will come back. Also, I am a minor league operator, while the others thought they were major league without any experience.

BoxingInsider.com: Besides promoting boxing events in cities such as Irvine, CA you have also been involved in Fight Promoter University. Tell us a little bit about how this project started, why you started it, and who some of the more successful students to come out of the class have been.

Roy Englebrecht: The fight business has been very good to me and I wanted to give something back. It just made me so sad to see promoters, who meant well, lose $25,000 on a show and were never heard from again. I want everyone to have a chance to be successful. We have had graduates be successful in Ohio, PA, Boston, California, Texas.

BoxingInsider.com: At the Fight Promoter events, you have officials like Armando Garcia from the CSAC along with officials from both Golden Boy Promotions & Top Rank. How have you been able to bring together different personalities from the fight business to help educate people who want to enter into the fight business? Aren’t the politics of the fight business usually set-up for sabotage rather than cooperation?

Roy Englebrecht: I always say “a rising tide raises all boats”, and I believe the big guys in combative sports realize this too! Bad promoters hurt good promoters!

BoxingInsider.com: It’s easy for new promoters getting into the fight business to say how they are not going to lose money like ‘the other guys’, and yet they seem to always lose money. Why is it that so many people think that they can get into the industry when 98% of everyone who enters the business fails?

Roy Englebrecht: They don’t treat it as a business, or they try to do it part time. You need to leave your ego at the door.

BoxingInsider.com: For a lot of fight promoters, it seems as if they want to promote shows and make themselves the front men just to get accolodades and attention. What separates a good promoter from a bad one when it comes to creating a persona or an image that the promoter actually cares about the fans that show up for an event, that the promoter is going to take care of those fans because they’re ‘in his house’ at that moment?

Roy Englebrecht: I believe to be a successful new promoter you shouldn’t date the ring card girls, sit in the front row, or get into the ring! A good promoter needs to be in the back of the house orchestrating the show….they are the conductor!

BoxingInsider.com: You worked with the Affliction group to help co-promote their first event, which drew a healthy crowd at the Honda Center in Anaheim. Why did you decide to work with Affliction and how did the opportunity come about?

Roy Englebrecht: Their people called me, as Tom Atencio had been to a number of my shows over the last 15 years and knew who I was. I love working with the Affliction group as they are successful business men who know what it takes to be successful…..hard work!

BoxingInsider.com: You frequently stress that you run shows to make money and to provide good, clean entertainment. Meanwhile, Affliction on their debut show had a rock concert-type feel to it with Megadeth and bragged about how much they paid their fighters. How is Affliction’s promoting philosophy compatible or incompatible with the lessons that you preach to others who want to get into the fight business?

Roy Englebrecht: The people at Affliction Entertainment believed as I do, “you don’t get a second chance to make a good first impression”, so some of this had to happen to make it a great first impression!

BoxingInsider.com: You recently were involved in promoting an event that you labeled as the first boxing & MMA doubleheader ever done. How did you come up with the concept and what kind of feedback did you receive for it?

Roy Englebrecht: We did a pro boxing show on one night and a pro MMA show on the next, in the same ring in the same venue. This was done for a session of Fight Promoter University, and I would not do it again unless tied in with FPU. It was very stressful.

BoxingInsider.com: Tell us a little bit about the new reality TV show project that you are involved in called “American Champion.” You are looking for new American heavyweight boxers, right?

Roy Englebrecht: Can a finely tuned athlete from one sport be trained to become a champion boxer in the heavyweight division? This is not The Contender, this is finding 10 elite athletes with the size we need, to go to training camp for eight months and come out fighting other pros.

Question: How did the idea for the “American Champion” program come about? Was it simply based on a need to develop new stars in boxing or was it based on some other philosophical idea?

Roy Englebrecht: Where have all the American Heavyweights gone? That was the incentive for us. I have two Hollywood partners in “American Champion”, Jason Williams and Greg McClatchy, and just thought that we need to have those glory days of heavyweights back.

BoxingInsider.com: Your promotional companies are often involved in a lot of charity activities, which is a good way to build local contacts and network with others who can help you down the road in other business ventures. Why do you think many promoters bypass this aspect of the business and focus on simply running a show on their own without much help?

Roy Englebrecht: This area of community involvement gets lost when you are a part time promoter!

BoxingInsider.com: How and when did you first begin your career in boxing?

Roy Englebrecht: 1985 with the first “Battle In The Ballroom” show at the Irvine Marriott. The main event was Bert Lee vs Danny “Magic” Lopez. Trust me we didn’t spend a lot on purses.

BoxingInsider.com: What has been the highlight moment of your career?

Roy Englebrecht: Oscar De La Hoya buying my company and we started Golden Boy Promotions.

BoxingInsider.com: What has been your most painful/disappointing moment?

Roy Englebrecht: God has been good to me all the time, I have no reason to be disappointed.