Dallas: Santana is the most marketable 140lb Prospect in the world!

Ray Campbell: What’s going on Santana? Give us a run down of your victory over Vladimir Khodokovski that took place last Wednesday night (9/20/06)?
Edgar Santana: I’m chilling just here relaxing. I felt my performance was pretty good, I felt real good in there. It was a pretty good fight; he was a tough strong dude. I went ten good rounds and I was happy with my performance.

RC: Ernesto, give us your take…
Ernesto Dallas: That guy (Vladimir Khodokovski) was a pretty good fighter, he went ten rounds and lost a split decision to Kendall Holt ((20-1(12)), then he went ten rounds with Stevie Johnston (39-4(18)), and the guy also went ten rounds with Juan Manuel Buendia (13-1-1(8)). So the guy wasn’t a guy that we expected to knock out. I would have been really surprised had we knocked him out, and not because Edgar doesn’t have the power to knock him out, but because he is one of those tough Ukrainians. He’s lefty, he is awkward, and you can’t go by these Ukrainians records because they probably have like 8,000 amateur fights. I knew that this guy going to be tough which is what I wanted. We have done 27 rounds this year and I am happy. That’s money in the bank, 27 rounds with three guys that I picked because I didn’t think that he was going to knock them out. I want guys that are gong to make him think, test his endurance, and make him make adjustments so that he can have confidence in his skills in rounds 7, 8, 9, and 10. I’m happy with his performance because he completely dominated from beginning into end. I think one judge had him loosing one round and that was it.

RC: Edgar, how soon will you be looking to return to the ring?
Edgar Santana: They are talking about November 11th in the Garden on the Klitschko Calvin Brock card, they don’t have any body for the fight yet but that’s what the talk is about.

Ernesto Dallas: Here is the situation, after Edgar’s last fight Lou DiBella asked me outside the Manhattan center will I be ready and willing to fight on the Klitschko undercard November 11th and I said absolutely. I got an email a couple days ago from DiBella’s office basically saying that they are working on it.

RC: Edgar, I read somewhere that you had inked a deal with Jefe clothing line, what could you tell us about that? Like what it means etc etc....?
Edgar Santana: Jefe it means Boss in Spanish. Basically it is a company that started out on the west coast and I am giving it some east coast exposure. It is a good company that has lot of good clothes and nice styles so you will always see me sporting their gear. Ernesto can tell you more about how the deal all happened

Ernesto Dallas: It worked out well and I am going to tell you why. First off we already feel comfortable with the east coast. Ten fights on Broadway boxing, we got all that New York, East Coast fighter, Puerto Rico kind of thing on our side. But I will tell you from a business standpoint, the people that are carrying boxing are the Mexicans. The numbers don’t lie; the epicenter of boxing purchasing believe it or not is El Paso, Texas. The consumption of boxing is being driven on the west. So it would be stupid for me to not try and get West Coast fans and a West Coast presence. I am not trying to do a Puerto Rican versus Mexican thing where they don’t like us. I want to have Mexican fans cheer for us because they are a lot of legitimate fans and if I present Santana to the West Coast as an East Coast kid that loves the west coast, I am picking up a whole new fan base. Mexicans love good boxing period and I figured that if we present Santana to them they will accept them, and it has happened so far.

So we hooked up with this company (Jefe Clothing) out of San Diego California, it is a Mexican style of clothing. The look is very west coast, very San Diego, very L.A., one of the owners is a guy by the name of Sonny Sandoval, he is the lead singer for a band called P.O.D., which is very big out on the west coast. So working with them works for everybody because we rep (resent) their clothes here on the East Coast, and they help us out because Santana, an East Coast fighter gets recognized by a West Coast fan base and it has worked out really well. We went out there to the West coast and we hooked up with the King of Cars, the reality show. He (Santana) is going to be coming out on the King of cars because of them (Jefe Clothing), they have done a lot of good publicity for us on the West Coast, and our myspace (http://www.myspace.com/santanaboxing) is just blowing up from a whole bunch of west coast people. Mexicans, men, women and kids, they all want to be supporters of Santana. So we are taking that whole East versus West thing, we have thrown that **explicit** in the garbage. We love the West Coast, we love San Diego and we love L.A. We get nothing but love man; we also took that Mexican versus Puerto Rico thing and threw it in the trash.

RC: Where can they purchase this line of clothing?
Ernesto Dallas: Jefeclothing.com, they have it in a couple of independent stores. They built their street credibility and right now they are in the process of selling it through some major channels.

RC: Edgar, where do you see yourself in the division right now? And exactly how and when would you like to go about becoming a popular name outside of NY?
Edgar Santana: I am still on the come up right now, by the early part of next year 2007 I at least want to be ranked in the top 15-20. I will be knocking on the doors for bigger and better fights next year and I am looking forward to it. I have been stepping it up in my last few fights fighting tougher guys; my last three opponents have all been pretty tough. I am still learning, every time I fight I’m learning something new in the ring and gaining all the experience that I am going to need when I move onto the bigger fights. I am pretty sure that when the time comes I will be more than ready.

RC: Ernesto, any idea when we might possibly see Santana on a ShoBox or Boxing after dark type card to get him that national exposure he is eventually going to need?
Ernesto Dallas: Absolutely, after last Wednesday fight with DiBella, he has already mentioned ShoBox and some of the national networks, and as you know it is already late in the year so there is no more dates. So in 2007 definite national exposure, that was our tenth fight on Broadway boxing, no one has ten victories on Broadway boxing, only Edgar Santana. So we have hit this level, we have paid our dues at this level, we love Broadway boxing and I think we have done everything to show that we are ready to graduate to National television exposure and DiBella agrees, he has already mentioned it to me. So we are going get one more fight in this year, it looks like 11/11 and then next year no doubt that we will get national T.V. exposure.

RC: Many people don’t realize that Santana is the guy on ESPN that throws the flurries in between the breaks and replays.
Ernesto Dallas: Helllooooo, yeah no doubt. Look listen up, let me tell you something and this is not a manger talking **Explicit** and pushing his fighter. Santana to me right now, if I was to step back and land from Mars, he has gotta be the most marketable 140lb prospect. No doubt hands down….

RC: (Cutting in) Well, you are…
Ernesto Dallas: (Cutting back in) Ready? I am going to give it to you now. One, he is Bilingual; he talks in Puerto Rico just like he talks in New York. He is not a NewYorican. He is a Puerto Rican. He can walk in Puerto Rico just like he does in New York. He has as much love over there as any native Puerto Rican fighter and he is also a native New Yorker, he can walk both worlds. Not to mention the fact that we are picking up Mexican fans. I gotta tell you that the sport is being driven wise by Hispanic fighters. That’s just one, now two…He is crazy good looking, and if you don’t believe we get emails like crazy look at his myspace (http://www.myspace.com/santanaboxing) friends count. In three months he has gotten over 20,000 hits. He has crazy females, that’s a cross over population that no other fighter outside of Oscar De La Hoya can say that they got. I mean crazy female fans, they come to the fights, they love him they, they write, they want pictures. No one is bringing that extra cross over appeal in the fight game. It is just not happening, so he has cross over good looks.

Now that’s not to mention that in the ring he has cannons for fist. He aint a fluke, this kid can really legitimately fight and if he could not fight DiBella wouldn’t have picked him up. And lastly, he is bankable, just ask DiBella about the gate. Ask DiBella about ticket sales, Santana put **explicit** in seats. So he can fight in the ring, he puts people in the seats. He is good looking he represents what the biggest growing fans base in boxing is and that is Latinos. He is humble, he is friendly, the kid has got it all, and I will argue that with anybody. He has all of the marketing elements that no one else at 140lbs has.

RC: In all what u have done for Santana is there a chance we might see you work with other fighters to try and accomplish the same results?
ED: You got it, I tell you what. Next year, I am brining out a new kid next summer. I got a Mexican kid whose name is Luis Ruiz. Another kid in the mold of a Santana, good family, humble and attentive father, because you know I don’t want to deal with knuckleheads. He is 20 years old, he doesn’t have an extensive amateur background, and after the Golden gloves I am going to turn him pro, I already presented him to DiBella and because of my reputation he said to me “Ernesto any fighter you bring to me, we will do business with”.

RC: Tell us a little more about this kid
Ernesto Dallas: He is 140lb fighter, he lives in Brooklyn, and he is first generation Mexican. Bilingual, he can bang with both hands, he has been doing a lot of sparring with Santana and we are going to present next year the first home grown Mexican fighter in NYC. There is not one, there was in Emmanuel Lucero, but of course main events they don know how to market a dude. But I am telling you what, we are going to give the Mexican population in New York someone to cheer for, and if you don’t think they are Mexicans in New York… did you see that immigration march, they come out quick.

Any person that dismisses the Mexican fan base in boxing is not going to be financially successful. Anybody who pretends that Mexicans don’t exist in boxing is missing a major customer base. That’s why I took Santana out to San Diego, to tap into the Mexican market. That’s why I am going to introduce this Mexican kid here in New York because there is no Mexican fighter that New Yorkers can cheer for, the only Mexicans fighting in New York are coming in from out of town as opponents. I am going to have the Mariachis going crazy

RC: The who going crazy?
Ernesto Dallas: I am going to have the mariachis going crazy, those are the people with the guitars and the trumpets and the big hats (starts to make a hilarious loud trumpet noise non-stop, then starts to laugh).

 

CLICK HERE FOR MORE

Send questions and comments to: Bkscam@gmail.com