Interview Dated October 2006

Promoter Cameron Park

Cameron Park is the newest promoter to emerge onto the Houston Boxing Scene. The 33-year-old Houston native got into boxing as a strength trainer, and has formed the company Rock Solid Promotions. He is hosting his first pro card on October 12th.



HBS - How did you first get involved in boxing?

CP - I started out as a strength coach. Lou Savarese is a really good friend of mine and there was a point in my life a few years back where I decided to get in really good shape for myself and he I guess really admired all the effort I put into it and the study. I studied nutrition, strength training just for my personal use and he asked me to train him as a strength coach and I trained him for a couple of fights and I met Bobby Benton who was his trainer and boxing coach and Bobby asked me to train a few guys and be a strength coach for a few other fighters and things just progressed. I travel a lot with these guys that I train and we travel to other states just to go get some exposure and start to build a record and I just saw a need for a good promoter in town. I know Jim Browning's been around for a long time and done a great job. I admire the guy but over the past couple of years he hasn't done much and I just saw a need for some Houston shows where some of our local fighters can get their name out instead of going to other cities and towns to get fights.

HBS - How long have you been a strength trainer for.

CP - Four years, roughly.

HBS - Tell us some of your techniques and methods.

CP - I start with nutrition. Nutrition is a real key thing. Sometimes you can get fighters to pay attention and listen and eat the way you tell them to. Sometimes they want to do it their way. But a lot of running, which is typical, a lot of roadwork. I incorporate some core training, some plyometrics, weightlifting, it's tailor-made to each fighter. Smaller guys you can't really put them under a lot of heavy weight because they've got to make weight but then you get a heavyweight who's a small heavyweight, it doesn't hurt to put ten or 15 pounds on him. So then we put him on some heavy weight training. We start six or eight weeks out before a fight, put him on some real heavy lifting, along with the plyometrics and core training and running. You do that for a few weeks and then kind of taper off the heavy lifting a couple of weeks before the fight.

HBS - I've heard some people are against weight training for fighters because it slows down their hand speed. You haven't found that to be a problem?

CP - I don't see that to be a problem. If it's a small guy they're not going to do any heavy lifting. You do high repetitions, medium weight. You're not trying to max out to do the heaviest weight you can. You just want to build up some strength. The heavier guys we can put them under some heavier weight training but we taper off a couple of weeks before the fight you stop all the heavy lifting and just go a little bit lighter and high repetitions. You do get a little stiff in the beginning with some heavy lifting but we quit all that and we taper it off as we get closer to the fight because you certainly don't want the guy stiff and slow going into the fight.

HBS - When you talk about nutrition, what are the best things to eat? Give as an overview of how you advise on nutrition.

CP - Basically my programs are high protein, moderate carbs. I don't believe in the low-carb diets at all. I think especially when you're an athlete training three or four hours a day you've got to have some carbs for energy. All the vegetables you can possibly eat and throw in a gallon of water at least a day and some multi-vitamins and antioxidants and vitamin C and vitamin E in there with it.

HBS - So now you're promoting your first card. Tell us a little about what that's been like setting it up. A lot of details to take care of. Any pitfalls you've encountered?

CP - No pitfalls yet. It's driving me nuts. It's a little nervewracking. There's so many little things that I wasn't taking into consideration. But I have covered all the bases I feel like. It takes a lot of time. It's more time than I expected to put into it but I am putting all my time into it. I'm a business owner as well. I'm in the printing business and I've kind of make it number two at this point and the boxing promotions are coming first. But it's everything from making sure I have a quality website to a quality image with the posters and flyers. I've seen a lot of stuff around town that other promoters do and some of them are okay but some of them wouldn't meet my standards. I'm real particular about my image as well as putting on a great event. Yeah there's many, many angles of it from inking the venue to making sure you have the insurance done on time and your bond's in place and dealing with media, radio, and television and of course HoustonBoxingScene.com.

HBS - There's a lot of risk putting on a card. It's estimated to cost a minimum of $25,000. It can be difficult to break even especially on your first card. What possessed you to go ahead and take that risk?

CP - I'm real confident that I can make it and you're absolutely right. It is $25,000 at a minimum. That is the key number. It can go for a club show, upwards of $50,000. It just depends on all your fighters and how much you spend on your venue and how much you put into advertising. I felt real confident that I could hit that $25,000 mark fairly easy. I've got some great talent on this first card with Chase Shields and Chris Henry in the main event, a title fight and I've got Rico Rodriguez who's a former UFC Heavyweight Champion and I believe all three of those guys are great tickets sellers. Then I have a lot of friends and family and clients with my other business that are supporting me a bunch with purchasing tickets and table for their businesses because I believe they're a great marketing tool or a great giveaway. Salesman can bring their clients out to these events and especially when it's a quality event like we're going to put on in a nice hotel ballroom where you've got carpeted floors and chandeliers and a full bar, a real nice event that provides a nice atmosphere for business interaction.

HBS - Who's Chris Henry fighting?

CP - We've actually had two opponents who have agreed to take the fight and when we sent the contracts up they pulled out so we have a guy, I actually don't even know his name, Bob Spagnola and Bill Benton are working hard to find the right guy. We can't just put him in with a no-name or a bum because this is a W.B.C. sanctioned event. He's defending his U.S.N.B.C. Light Heavyweight Title, which is the W.B.C.'s North American title, and the opponent has to be approved by the W.B.C. so it can't be just a pushover, it has to be a pretty tough guy.

HBS - Henry's a great fighter. He's undefeated and knocked just about everybody's he's faced. He should be pretty exciting to watch.

CP - His' record's 15-0 with 14 KO's. He's a little upset about that one decision. He's a little disappointed in himself for not having a perfect record of 15 knockouts.

HBS - Then Chase Shields, how'd you get him in your promotional stable?

CP - I've known Chase for some time. He's in our gym. All the guys that I've trained as a strength coach are out of Main Boxing Gym, Bill & Bobby Benton's gym downtown. I've had a lot of interaction with Chase. I've actually worked his corner in a couple of fights when we've been on the road. He's gone on the road with us with a couple of the fighters that I've worked with. We've gone to other states, Oklahoma and other places and I had the opportunity to work his corner and get to know him. I see him in the gym all the time. I wasn't his strength coach but we've become really good friends along the road and I think he trust me and knows I'm going to do a great job. We've got a pretty good relationship and he's seen thus far we're just under two weeks out now and I've been working on this thing hard four four or five weeks and I've actually had him on a television interview last week and this week I've got a couple of radio things lined up for him so he sees I'm working really hard and I think he's real excited about being on board.

HBS - Any idea who he's going to fight.

CP - He's fighting "Hot Rod" Perez out of Rosenberg or Richmond.

HBS - Then you've got this guy from the UFC coming over.

CP - Yeah, Rico Rodriguez. He's a former UFC Heavyweight Champion. I trainerd Rico briefly. He's transitioning into boxing, still doing some mixed martial arts fights. I believe he's still under contract with his mixed martial arts promoter. He's got a couple of fights left on his contract and he's decided, we kind of pushed him into as well. (Laughs), Now he's gung ho about it but to transition inot boxing he's had some boxing experience. For MMA he's trained some in a boxing gym and he's beaten some of the best strikers as they call them in the MMA world so we just thought let's just gie it a shot and see what we can do, maybe give him a couple of fights, see if he likes it, see if we like how he looks and try to get him a decent record and put him out there for a big fight maybe.

HBS - So obviously if this one's a success you plan to do a few more cards.

CP - Absolutely. If this one is a success, no longer than eight weeks afterwards, I may in fact do one six weeks after this first show. So I'm real excited about it. I would like to build a nice following, a nice clientele or fan base if you will get some repeat business in there and start running some shows. There's a lot more fighters than just the guys that I work with that need to have some fights. There's some great talent in Houston and I think we need to be able to showcase the talent here in Houston and build names for them here in their hometown. If you can't do it in their hometown it's going to be even harder to do it in other towns.

HBS - It seems like there have been quite a few promoters who have come out recently. Roy Jones just did a card, Bobby Jones and Kenny Weldon are doing their thing over there in Pasadena and Joe Dumas up in Humble and there's Leland Dean and it seems like there's a resurgence of professional fighting in Houston.

CP - I've been to some of those shows. Leland Dean is actually a pretty good friend of mine. I think he's doing a pretty good job. What I've seen, there's been several promoters and I wouldn't know which ones they are but I've seen some shows, they get announced and then canceled. I'm sure there's various reasons why a promoter would cancel a show but the shows I've been to, some of them are nice, some of them wouldn't be up to my standards.

HBS - There's a demand for these fights out there and people are willing to step up and put these shows on and that's a good thing.

CP - Yeah, I agree. One of the things I will say is I will not schedule shows and then cancel them. It may be my last show but I will not cancel it. I've been to several shows around town and some of them are real good shows and some of them don't have quite the turnout so I can imagine some of the ones that I've been to might have been the last one that guy's going to do since it wasn't such a great turnout.

HBS - What is it you enjoy about the sport?

CP - Every end of it. I love the training, I love watching the guys that I know in the ring, practicing their craft. I admire these guys for all the effort they put into it. In my opinion, to be a boxer you have to be in much better condition than you have to be in to be a baseball player or a football player. I'm not saying those guys don't get in shape but to be one of the top level boxers you have to be in the best shape that you can possibly be in so I really admire that and I just feel passionate about the sport. I actually get in the gym and box a little bit myself just for fun and for conditioning and exercise and it's just the feeling I get when I'm around these guys it's just an awesome feeling.