Interview Dated 2005

Matchmaker Blas Perez

In the 11 months since HoustonBoxingScene.com began, I've brought you interviews with virtually every type of person who works in the fight game in Houston: male and female fighters, former world champions, trainers, managers, gym owners, promoters, referees. That leaves out a lesser-known yet completely integral player in what makes a fight come together: The Matchmaker. Blas Perez is one of a small handful of matchmakers in Texas. He says he strives not to create a one-sided card where all the hometown favorites will necessarily win, but to put together a show that will leave fans satisfied. I caught up with him as he was still in the process of putting together the recent Julio Cesar Garcia card.


HBS - Where are you from originally?

BP - Born in Richmond, Texas.

HBS - How did you first get involved in boxing?

BP - I did boxing back when I was a teenager yes. I did do boxing then, a little amateur and then I turned pro and then I'd say a very short career and that but I've been training boxers. My brother was a boxer, my dad was a boxer. My nephews were fighters. My nephew is the current junior middleweight champion of Texas and a lot of my nieces boxed. Everybody that was in the Perez family did a little boxing. It's a tradition I guess.

HBS - What is it that you enjoy about the sport?

BP - Basically I enjoy the sport of competition. There's no other sport that measures up to boxing because it's a lot of dedication. There's a lot of strength into this, there's a lot of sweat and tears that come into it and then the rewards are very big in boxing if you dedicate your 100 percent to boxing. And like it was to myself and to a lot of other minorities or other people that have nothing and all of a sudden....I couldn't afford a football uniform or a baseball uniform but I got the opportunity to box and through boxing I've got to travel. I got to meet people and talk to people that people with money couldn't have done so that's why I think boxing's a very good thing. I think it relieves a lot of people's emotions, a lot of people's stress and it gives the youngsters a camaraderie, a brotherhood among themselves in the gym that sometimes they don't have at home.

HBS - You're a matchmaker. Describe what it is you do.

BP - A matchmaker is a person that puts two fighters together in competition. It's a matchmaker's job to do the best that he can to match two fighters at equal amount of talent with the best of his ability. They want to be able to put exciting fights on for the crowd. The matchmaker plays a very important role in a promotion because people have to go and enjoy the fights and say "Hey that was a good promotion." There's a lot that takes part in matchmaking because you have to negotiate directly with the managers and the fighters as far as the money, as far as the competition and whether or not you want to fight this guy, whether you don't want to fight him, whether it's the right time to do so, it's not, so it's a very stressful job and that's why there's not that many matchmakers in the state of Texas. I think there's only about four of us and it's a very stressful job but it's something that's very challenging to me and something that I like to do.

HBS - It seems as though you're involved in a lot of the logistical details involved in making sure the fights happen.

BP - Yes, unfortunately my job is a job with different hats. Of course it's my responsibility to make sure that the guys are there at the weigh-ins and make sure that they have their physicals, they have their blood work, they're all at the proper weight and they are where they're supposed to be at the time that they're supposed to be there. Yes it is a job that you have to wear a lot of hats to but that's part of being a matchmaker and that's why I say again that there's very few of us. I've learned a lot form some of the top matchmakers here in this side of Texas; Mr. Bill Benton, Wayne Harrison, several gentlemen that have been in this business and that took me under their wings and showed me a lot of good things. Of course some things they just can't teach you. You just have to learn through experience.

HBS - You must have a pretty extensive network of contacts that enables you to solicit fighters and line up these top quality guys. It's something you pile up over a number of years I'd imagine.

BP - Well yes I've been doing this for over 30 years and during those times of working with the amateur fighters and professional fighters you get to do a lot of travelling and you meet a lot of people and of course now you get a lot of work through the internet and stuff now but mostly it's meeting people and that's one of the important things is to be able to meet and talk to these people on a regular basis and you get to know a lot of things about a lot of fighters and managers and who the dependable managers are, who are the quality trainers and who are the best known fighters and the best fighters.

HBS - It seems like there's a high potential for things to sort of go wrong at the last minute before a bout. There was a card I thought you were part of last Summer and I was there when it fell apart at the last second. What can you say about that?

BP - Well in any promotion there's a lot of things that happen. There's things in promotion that are going to be like local promotions or there are some promotions that are built up for television. Of course the particular promotion that you were talking about I know exactly what happened. It was the people involved in the financing of hte promotion that were not able to come through as promised. And so the promoter at that time decided that it cheaper, let's say to cancel the show and pay the fighters than it was to put the show on and have to pay them their full purse because anytime a show is cancelled without the fighters being responsible then he has to pay them a portion. So a portion was better to pay the full amount. In that particular he had a contract signed with some people from a different company and they pulled out at the last minute so it was kind of hard for the promoter to cary that on himself.
 
HBS - What's the most creative lame excuse you've ever heard for someone to pull out of a fight at the last minute?

BP - Well.....(Laughs)...I think one of the funniest ones was a guy that called in and actually he called in and he said he couldn't be able to fight because he had a cut over his head and the cut over his head was his wife that hit him with a lamp. After that she was sorry because he missed out on making some money so they both paid a price for that.

HBS - A lot of times there are promoters that try to get opponents to pad the records of their fighters. What do you say about that practice?

BP - There's a way to do boxing and there's a way not to do boxing and you have to take consideration that everybody tries to protect their fighters. If the managher has any concern about anything because you get to get to do things with these fighters that it becomes you know united between a fighter and a manager. But there's a way to do it. I mean you have to put your fighter in a fight that's compatible to him otherwise you don't know what you have. And then you build this guy up with a lot of soft fights and then when when the hard fight comes along he's not there for you. He's not going to respond. And then all of a sudden you and your fighter are in danger because, first you're in danger because there was a promoter that believed he was getting a top rated fighter, he's out so you don't have what you say you have and the fighter he believes he is more than what he is and he isn't because he hasn't been tested. And so we have to as managers and trainers say we have to do the right thing. It's just like spanking your child. Sometimes you let him and spoil him and don't spank him and then at the end when he grows up he winds up doing things that he shouldn't be doing because you weren't there to correct him and so you have to nourish him. You have to sometimes spank your fighter but putting him in a not-so-tough fight but being able to test him and when he does then you'll have a good champion.

HBS - Now you've got this card with Cantu Promotions and he promoted for awhile and then he got out of it but now he's back into it. You look forward to doing some more of this in the relatively new future.

BP - Yes, I do. I want to be able to do with Pedro Cantu a lot of things and I'm very grateful to Mr. Cantu for asking me to be his matchmaker, very grateful to him to come back and bring boxing to Houston, the type of boxing that the people want to see. I'm trying to do my best. I've got the perfect matchmakers but I've learned a lot through the years to where I try to do the best that I can and make them exciting. If I don't like what I'm seeing then how do I expect other people to do so.