Eye of the Tiger boss Camille Estephan boasts one of the most formidable stables in world boxing. Last night, feared 168-pounder Osleys Iglesias dominated Oliver Zaren and later this month, Christian Mbilli faces Canelo Alvarez. Here, Estephan talks about his life in and out of boxing and how he has shaped EOTT thus far.
Yeah, so obviously, Osleys Iglesias did well last night, you’ve raved about him for some time… He’s now 16-0 (15 KOs) following his stoppage of Oliver Zaren
You know, it’s funny because every punch he lands, you see that even like the jab before the fight and during the camp, Marc Ramsey told me, ‘Camille, at one point he’s going to knock out somebody with his jab,’ and yesterday that almost happened. The guy, every single punch he lands takes so much out of the opponent it’s a mercy when the fight finishes quickly because they just take a lot of damage. I don’t think the guys are ever the same and Zaren yesterday showed a lot of heart, he was actually very good. He’s a bit elusive, he’s got good defence, he’s strong, he took some real heavy punishment, but yeah, Marc said he’s coached fighters for 27 years and he’s never seen anything like it.
How do you get these guys, Camille, because you’ve got Khataev, Mbilli, Iglesias, Orobio, they’re all really just tough, very good fighters.
Yeah, yeah, we’re fortunate, I think we did some really good work scouting obviously, you know. We’re not the only people that knew how good they were, but a guy like Orobio, who may be one of the best, if not the best. We got him at 18, Wilkens Mathieu we got him, we already had the relationship when he was in the amateurs, we stayed close, so we did a good job scouting. Scouting is not just identifying talent, but it’s really like putting a plan together, making sure that they understand where you want to go with their careers, and we have a good reputation, touch wood, and hopefully we can continue to build on that.
How did you and Marc Ramsey come to team up?
David Lemieux. He needed a new coach and we hooked up with Marc, and then over time, basically my goal was to have him [Ramsey] work exclusively for us, and when the timing came together, we hired him exclusively. He still at the time had Beterbiev, but we knew that the opportunities would come for him to fight in Canada, so it all worked out.
How highly do you rate Marc, because when people talk about the top coaches, he goes under the radar quite often.
Well, I think people know, I think he’s developed a lot of champions, he’s not a guy that got given champions. He’s not one of those guys that are fed the champions, he’s building them, so I think he’s one of the best. It’s probably the best move I did, is hire this guy.
Who was your very first fighter, Camille?
My very first fighter was Bermane Stiverne, the heavyweight. At the time, nobody believed this guy could do anything other than me and him, and he became a WBC champion, he beat [Chris] Arreola, he got the WBC title, unfortunately, that was kind of the limit of what we could do, he lost to Wilder, in a 12-round fight and the truth is, Bermane just wanted to become a champion. He used to tell me, ‘If ever I become a heavyweight champion of the world, I could die the next day, I don’t give a shit,’ And when he won, he just didn’t have the motivation anymore to do what was necessary to stay on top.
When are people going to start calling Eye of the Tiger one of the big promoters? People, are quick to go to PBC, Top Rank, Golden Boy. What’s it going to take to make that next step, to be recognised alongside one of those as one of the major powerhouses?
I think people know, people in the industry know, when you’re fighting an Eye of the Tiger fighter, it’s not a picnic. We’re like a boutique shop. We’re never going to have 100 fighters, 75 fighters, that’s not what we want. That’s not the vision I have. We have 20, 25 fighters, we don’t want to exceed that by too much. Right now, I mean, when you think about it, we have 22 fighters, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, not many people are actually, but we have 22 fighters signed currently, and out of the 22, we have so many ranked in the top 15, I think we have 12 fighters ranked in the top 15 [by sanctioning bodies] or champions, so, you know, you look at the density of the top talent out of 22-fighter roster, and some of the guys, they’re very good prospects that are on their way. The BoxRec ratings are not influenced by a federation, they’re not influenced by a promoter, they’re just mathematical formulas, and currently we have, believe it or not, 12 fighters in the top 15 in BoxRec. Iglesias is number one BoxRec ranking, you look at Khataev, Beaudoin, Biyarslanov, Mbilli, Ramirez, Perez, Asanau, Orobio, Wilkens Mathieu. It’s just a very, very solid roster. So what’s it gonna take? I think if Mbilli wins against Canelo, the stamp will become much stronger. We have two fights [Biyarslanov challenges Lindolfo Delgado for the vacant IBF 140lbs title on the bill] on October 31st, and to win both, that’s what it’s gonna take.
Just go back with Mbilli to the fight with Lester Martinez, last year, that was a tough fight, you were obviously up against a ProBox TV guy, what do you think of ProBox TV, and what they’ve done through Garry Jonas?
I think they’re doing a good job. I honestly don’t look much at other businesses. I concentrate on what we’re doing, but I think what Eye of the Tiger has is different, right, there’s just a unique level of talent. I don’t think something’s comparable with me, if you look at the top 15 fighters at any of the… PBC, Matchroom, and Top Rank, and they’d say to you, ‘Which roster do you want?’ You’ll have to think about it, whereby I don’t think there’s anybody else out there that can be part of that conversation at this stage.
Do you do other work as well, Camille, or are you 100 per cent in boxing?
No, no, I’m in the wealth management business, in the stock market. I’m a stock broker, I own a stock brokerage firm, basically.
So you don’t need to do boxing, is it like a hobby for you? How do you compare it to the day job?
I’d say it’s a passion, it’s not a hobby, it’s a passion, it’s a business that has to make sense, it has to work, it has to be economically viable, and, you know, we’re doing this to win, we’re doing this to be representing Quebec and making them proud. We have a market here, we have developed a very strong market, when the big fights come, we can sell stadiums, we can easily sell for the right fight over 20,000 tickets. When I say sell tickets, it’s truly sold tickets. I’m known to be Dr. Scrooge when it comes to giving tickets away, I don’t give tickets away, otherwise I’m a generous person. So we have a good, healthy market here.
In terms of the fight at the end of the month, obviously there seems to be quite a lot of uncertainty online that anyone will be going to Riyadh at all, is that something that you are wary of and prepared for, if plans change?
No, no, no, I’m not at all. The card was announced yesterday, fully with the undercard, the paperwork is done, everybody signed, I mean, you know, God willing, there is no, massive bombing or something going on like that, but the card is going to happen, I think things are under control, if not, they would not want to go ahead with it. We expect that we’re going to have a Halloween night, it’s going to be trick or treat and we’re going to pull a trick on everybody and shock the world with Mbilli against Canelo.
People will always favour Canelo against anyone because he’s such a big name, but do you think he’s not the fighter that he was a couple of years ago?
You know what, I think, knowing Canelo, he’s a legend with what he’s done so far. He’s a very proud guy, so he’s going to come into this fight wanting to take the title back, he’s fighting for a legacy. He’s already built a great legacy, so I think he’s going to be as motivated as can be. We’ve seen that he’s been very disciplined in his camp, they postponed the fight because he wanted to be at the best that he could be. There were some situations that caused him to delay because he wanted to be serious about the camp, so he’s going to be the best he can be at this stage. Is he as good as when he was at 28? I don’t think anybody who’s 38 is as good as when they were at 28, but maybe… he has more experience. The thing is, truthfully, I’m not saying this because I want to sell the fight or boast or whatever… think of a wolf that’s climbing up the hill versus the wolf that’s on the hill. Who’s hungrier? And Mbilli has that in him, and what we’ve seen from him in camp right now is very encouraging. We’re going with a lot of confidence because what we want him to do in the camp, he’s doing and then some. So he’s really impressing us.
Besides, Mbilli… people say, we know what he’s going to do, you can adjust to that, we know he’s going to do what he always does, true, but knowing what he does and facing it is two different matters, so I think we will be coming out on top in this fight.
When are you scheduled to go over?
Tuesday of the week, but the guys are going, like, 11 days [before], so they’re leaving maybe very soon, 10 days less, actually.
This is against a backdrop where people are talking about maybe there being less money available in Saudi Arabia through politics and through maybe their change in direction, what do you think of the overall impact that they’ve had on the business, and with that, I mean I know a lot of money has come in, but now, obviously, it’s very difficult to make fights at the top level because so many people are familiar with massive Saudi purses?
Yes, you know, people like to talk and I think the boxing industry should be grateful for Saudi Arabia, Riyadh Season, Turki, and, you know, MBS. They’ve brought something to boxing. We have not seen the fights, the big fights happen for a while.
We were lacking. Look at just now with Fury and Joshua, it’s happening, right? Yes, there were a lot of negotiations, I mean, does that mean they have less money? No, maybe it’s a matter of just being responsible. That’s their business. I don’t know, but the big fights are still happening, so I don’t know, you know. Canelo-Mbilli is happening, Joshua against Fury is happening. I know they’re announcing another massive fight soon. I think it’s just talk. I heard this saying once, ‘Just like they have a couple of elbows, people have a couple of opinions.’ They like to be heard, so they talk shit.
In terms of Mbilli, do you feel like Canelo’s got big balls to take him on? Because it’s quite a high-risk and relatively low-reward fight for Canelo, right? At his stage of the game, a lot of people only look for the big, big names and the big money, don’t they?
Well, let’s look at the situation. First of all, yes, he does have a lot of guts and balls too, to say this is the fight I want. I mean, let’s face it, if Mbilli did not have the WBC title, he would not fight. It’s obvious. But when we talk about big names, I mean, Crawford retired, Munguia, they already fought. Pacheco is chicken, he won’t fight no one. Who else is out there? Sheeraz doesn’t even have a title anymore. And it’s for the WBC title, which is… he’s Mexican, this is the Mexican organisation, it’s the most prestigious title and it is with us. So, it’s that simple.
There’s not many other names. You know, Iglesias, would he fight Iglesias? Tell me something, I want to ask you this. You’re in the boxing industry, you’re very knowledgeable when it comes to the fighters. Have you ever seen a fighter with two world titles but nobody even brings his name up. Like, they’re scared to say his name, literally. And when I say scared, I do mean scared.
Sometimes it does not make financial sense. So, the fighters are like, ‘Oh, he’s scared of me, he won’t fight me.’ Yeah, sometimes that’s true.
It’s not scared, it just does not make business sense. In this guy’s case, Riyadh Season wants him on, every single time they talk to someone about Iglesias, ‘No, we won’t fight him.’
I’ve been told by managers and promoters, ‘I’ll never let my guy step in the ring with this guy.’ So, this to me now is the riddle we have to solve. You know, Iglesias has to unify.
It’s for the best interest of boxing, because seeing him fight, it leaves an impression on you. It’s very scary, truly. So, we are in a very good position, because we’re in building with the WBC title, IBF and IBO with Iglesias.
We’re going to corner the other guys at some point in time. And it’s fun times for the fan, because these fights are happening. So, I believe if Canelo would have said, ‘I would fight Iglesias, the fight would have happened.’
And we want to see the other guys step up to the plate and be real champions. It’s a frustration for me right now, to be honest.
I don’t mean the word frustration in a way. No, we move forward, we’re doing everything we have to do. And he’s becoming more and more popular.
He’s getting a chance and time to gel with Marc Ramsey. But the big fights are happening. And that’s really encouraging.
Okay, but I suppose one of your other jobs as a promoter is to try and turn these guys into household names? And it’s difficult with the guys you’ve got, where they’ve come from all corners of the globe. And whether it’s Eastern Europe or Cuba, how do you get them to become to that level of superstardom? Is it just a matter of letting the actions talk for them? Or is there something that you can do to get their characters out and to turn them into a Sugar Ray Leonard, a Floyd Mayweather? How do you make that conversion?
Well, I think it’s a question, it’s a right question. There’s three parts to the answer. First is you’ve got to give them a market. You’ve got to give them a fanbase where they can fight in front of and people call them, ‘Oh yes, this is my fighter.’
So we’re able to do this here in Quebec. Quebec recognises, Quebec wants winners, they love champions, they want winners. So we expose them here.
Our fighters are very active. You look at some of our fighters, for example, Leila Beaudoin fought at world title. She fought Baumgardner.
She fought twice for a world title. She fought four times in the last 10 months. Very rare to see that at high level boxing.
So our fighters are fighting often. So the more they fight, the more people see them able and doing what they can do in the ring, the more popular they become. So we are trying to build a market for them here and they get adopted in Quebec.
So that’s very, very fortunate for us. Just like [Lucian] Bute in the past and [Jean] Pascal and many others. The second thing is telling the story. We have a production company that makes the documentaries on these guys. We have millions of viewers that have seen them, that know their story. But when you think about it at the end of the day, in boxing today, how many superstars do we have? Really?
So any sport will have the superstars on top and everybody else willing and wanting to be there. And I believe now we are very close with Mbilli, with Iglesias, with Orobio, with Khataev.
Khataev, he beat [David] Morrell. Whether people like it or not, he won that fight. On paper he lost, but he won that fight and everybody knows that.
So we have the guys that have the talent because you can do all you want. They can fight all they want. We can tell the story all we want.
If they’re not champions, then you’ve got nothing at the end of the day. So I believe we have that combination.
Let me ask you about Zuffa Boxing and what your thoughts are on Zuffa because they came in very bullish saying that they wanted to take over everything, not work with the sanctioning bodies and they wanted to be boxing and to be the be-all and end-all. Do you see them as a threat?
No. At the end of the day, they brought a very solid contract to boxing from Paramount.
You look at the financials of that contract, it’s a lot of money, more for the boxing industry. So what their intentions are, what they want to do, that’s on them. Boxing is not like mixed martial arts where it was a very new sport… nothing is established.
Here there’s legacy, there’s a structure, there’s a network that’s not necessarily working together… They’re not necessarily one organisation, but they kind of have to work together. When I want to make a big fight, I gotta talk to one of the top promoters and say, ‘Hey, let’s make this fight, so we work together.’
So boxing is a very different animal than mixed martial arts and what the UFC has done. But they brought a contract to boxing, boxers, they are getting paid through it. I think it’s good. What their intentions are in becoming boxing? I don’t really care about that. I mean, it’s up to me to have the fighters. At the end of the day, Tris, if you have the right fighters that people want to see, you’re the one who holds the cards. That’s what it comes down to. So they don’t have the fighters right now.
Does the Ali Revival Act make any difference to you in Canada?
I think it’s going to affect boxing worldwide. I mean, the major thing that the promoters are really ticked about here is being the federation and being the promoter at the same time. And you think about it and you say, well, is there a conflict of interest there? That’s really what it’s about.
It’s like as if I was your lawyer, accountant and stockbroker at the same time. Your finances have to be checked with different entities. They have to be worked on with different entities.
So, you want to avoid conflict of interest in any situation. And people knock on the federations because they say, ‘Well, there’s too many champions.’ There’s two sides to that coin.
The first is like, ‘Yes, we’d love to identify as a fan with the champion, one champion.’ And it kind of happens naturally with time when the guy is that dominant. Canelo was for a while, right? Golovkin had that kind of aura. There was Floyd, there was Sugar Ray. We had many.
But in the same situation like Canelo, he’s not defending his titles and he’s moving to divisions. If you don’t have interim champions, if you don’t have other federations to fight for, it kills the game. It kills the fight.
It kills the whole industry. So there’s health in competition. Having competition is healthy.
Being in absolute control of the titles, the rankings and the promotion, you can end up with a conflict of interest. There’s ways for it to be done properly, but that’s where the danger is. That’s where the risk is.
When we spoke probably about a year ago, maybe more, you said that Iglesias was one to watch and to keep an eye out on him. And obviously I’ve done that since. If you were telling me the same thing now of another one you’ve got coming through, who’s the next one?
Jhon Orobio – and every bit as much. These two guys are both a massive problem for any division. Whoever is going to go in the ring with them must have a lot of guts, because it’s very, very, very hard.
You mentioned Lucian Bute. I’ve got my ballot here for the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He’s on the ballot. Do you think he’s a Hall of Famer?
Yeah. I mean, if you look at it, the Hall of Fame is about what have you done for boxing. You know, it’s not necessarily only the top, top, top champions. Not everybody has to be Jackie Robinson. So he’s done a lot for boxing.
He’s the market here in Quebec. He’s done a lot for it to make people love boxing. It’s the athletes that we love the sport. So yeah, I think so.
All right, Camille. I really appreciate you making the time, particularly the day after a big show.
And I just want to put it out there. Imam Khataev wants all the British light heavyweights.
Okay, great. So your Buatsi, your Yardes, Ben Whittaker, all of them?
Ben Whittaker would not last for five rounds with Imam. Actually, maybe he lasts for five, maybe he does six, but he definitely doesn’t see the seventh.