Mike Arnaoutis: Fast on the Move with a Heavy Hit List.

Exclusive interview with “Mighty” Mike Arnaoutis and his manager Mike Michael.

Look out Miguel Cotto!

With head spinning velocity, twenty-five year old southpaw Mike Arnaoutis ripped through an impressive selection of up and coming American based light welterweight prospects in 2004, and is on track to continue his Sherman-like swath of destruction march to a world

title. In his last three fights, Arnaoutis, 12-0-2 (6), fought unbeaten knockout artist Juan Urango to an epic draw before moving on to stop the very difficult Jesse Feliciano and highly regarded Jauquin Gallardo. This Friday, he meets hard as nails Los Angeles based opponent Roberto Santa Cruz at the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, California in a fight scheduled for ten rounds, and you can catch it on Showtime’s Shobox program. We were able to get an exclusive interview with Mike and a main member of his management company, Cestus Management’s Mike Michael, and the results are spectacular. This is must read material! We go behind the scenes with a look into the background and career of the hottest prospect in the world, a native of Greece, before getting a master class tutorial on the business of boxing by the very experienced Mike Michael!

SaddoBoxing: How do you feel coming into this fight?

Mike Arnaoutis: “I feel good and ready to go.”

SB: How has training camp gone?

MA: “Very good, and we’ve been sparring with Lorenzo Bethea and Shamone Alvarez.”

SB: The opponent, Roberto Santa Cruz, has been inactive for awhile now; was it difficult finding tape on him?

Mike Michael: “To be totally frank, we cannot obtain a tape on him because there isn’t any. He’s never boxed on TV before. So we just used our connections and our sources to find out some information as to who’s seen him fight. My matchmaker, who is a very good personal friend of mine, has seen the kid fight so we got the information that we require.”

SB: From what you do know, how would you assess Santa Cruz as a fighter?

MM: “The only thing we can go by is his record because we haven’t seen him fight. We don’t really know too much about him, apart from the information we got. We examined his fight record and the people that he’s fought. We thought that he may be a tough kid and durable, but we’re going to beat this guy.”

SB: Mighty Mike, I’ve seen you fight a few times and was very impressed. I noticed from your record that you didn’t have a lot of stoppages early in your career on but stopping Jesse Feliciano was substantial. Has your power increased as you continue to develop as a professional?

MA: “I needed to move up from the journeymen type of opponents I had been fighting in order to really feel challenged. It made me raise my game.”

SB: Since Santa Cruz has been out of the ring for almost two years, logically, would you folks be inclined to set a hot pace in order to take advantage of any lack stamina that layoff has caused the opponent?

MM: “We take all our opponents very, very seriously. We’ve continued to train for Santa Cruz like we’re training for a world title fight, as we always do. We’re going to set our normal pace, take a look at him, see what he’s got and react accordingly.”

SB: In the times that I’ve seen Mighty Mike fight, he looked to be far more experienced than the amount of professional fights he’s had would indicate. Did you have an extensive amateur career, Mike?

MA: “I was a decorated amateurwho had 110 fightsand 103 wins. I’ve won numerous amounts of European tournaments, multi-nations tournaments, represented my country and been a champion in Greece since the age of twelve. I’ve always been at the top of the game, even as an amateur. The only reason that I didn’t go to the Olympics is that I met Mike Michael and he made me turn professional (laughs).”

SB: Was coming to America everything you thought it would be or have there been things that you didn’t expect? This question relates to both your boxing career and personal life.

MA: “For my career, the expectations that I had coming here have been exceeded and personally I have no problems at all because I like being in this country and everything is good so far.”

SB: Mighty Mike has beaten some very good people and I imagine that as his management company, you folks have a plan as to how to approach a title fight opportunity. Can you share that plan with us?

MM: “Once we’re successful on Friday, our next move will be to try and get Oscar Diaz into the ring with us. Our intention is to fight for the USBA title, which will automatically get us into the top ten in the IBF. We’re already number thirteen in the IBF, so we should come into the rankings at number seven or eight, or just a fraction higher than that. Having beaten Diaz at that point, we’ll shoot for someone in the top ten in the world, which we feel we’ll be ready for someone like that. Maybe Francisco Bojado, but it really depends on who is willing to step up to the plate at that time.

“As you’re aware, we do have an exceptionally talented fighter that is really coming into himself. If you examine the 140-pound division at this moment in time, it looks like there is an endless pit there of talent. But if you really examine the world top fifteen, it’s not as big a talent pool as everybody sees it. If you’re talking about Kostya Tszyu, he’s got to move up; he has to in order to fight Zab Judah for the money. Arturo Gatti is going to fight Mayweather for the money, Sharmba Mitchell is going to move up because there’s nobody for him at 140-pounds.

“So, the only fight we feel we should be leading up to, and we mean business as we’re willing to put as much money up as the situation possibly requires, is a big showdown at the end of 2006 with Miguel Cotto, if he is still at 140-pounds. We feel Cotto is very, very beatable and tailor made for Mike. We feel that his popularity in America is not as big as what it seems to be because he’s trying to compete with Felix Trinidad.

“I’ll give you an example about that: if Miguel Cotto was going to fight at Madison Square Garden I totally assure you that 17,000 Puerto Ricans would not show up to watch him. He’s in direct conflict on drawing power with Felix Trinidad, plus he’s a very uncharismatic young man.

“So, with our marketing machine, and we’re using the same machine that they used for De La Hoya, we will be marketing Mike in the same fashion as Oscar was. By the time that fight materializes, if ever it does, we will probably be just as big of a draw as Cotto if not bigger because of the popularity we will have put together as a package. As far as winning the fight? Absolutely we would beat Cotto with no problem. It would be a classic fight that I would even go so far to say could be a pay-per-view event.”

SB: That’s a fascinating strategy.

MM: “Well, if you look at the reality, we’re not the normal manager-fighter-street corner dudes that sign contracts and don’t understand about the industry that they’re in. We’ve all got degrees in marketing, the CEO of Cestus Management, Gina Iacovou, has a degree and is an ex-attorney. We’ve got an office in London and I used to work for Lennox Lewis for ten years with his former promoter Panos Eliades. We have a wealth of knowledge and we have our own matchmakers, our own trainers, we’re actually like unofficial promoters.

“We understand the industry that we’re in but we also understand that in order to proceed with a product you have to market that product. If you have a product that can be marketed, i.e. can fight, i.e. is charismatic, i.e. is willing to cooperate, then you have something. We realize that and entertain the fact of us as being able to produce. In this business, there’s a magic term called performance, performance, performance.

“From the Juan Urango fight up to the Jauquin Gallardo fight, you have seen a relatively unknown guy come from obscurity to become an overnight sensation and one of the hottest fighters in this country. The way that was done was through a very, very careful strategic plan. We built Mighty Mike up down in Baltimore, we built him up a little bit in New York and then we took a fight with Juan Urango, for which by the way everybody thought I was out of my mind. But who was out of their mind, me or them?”

SB: (laughs)

MM: “That was one of the best fights of 2004 by the way, a sizzling, entertaining fight, action packed every single second of every single round. Mike just came off six-rounders and I threw him into a twelve round title fight against an animal that nobody wanted to fight! And Mike tamed the bull. If Mike was going to have a rematch with that guy, I totally and utterly assure you that it is my profound belief that Urango would not go more than six or seven rounds. The only reason he lasted twelve rounds was, number one, Mike had never been over six rounds and number two, Mike didn’t go to the body. Otherwise, he would have stopped that guy.

“Now you’re seeing a new and improved Mike Arnaoutis because we went back to the drawing board and we ironed out most of the mistakes. You’re always going to have a few mistakes, but we unleashed a monster against Feliciano. Mike also was voted ‘King of the Ring’ for 2004 by Showtime on their year-end wrap up program. He beat down Diego Corrales, Kostya Tszyu, Ricky Hatton and Jeff Lacy by 53%. Now that’s a big percentage and those are the top guys, or some of the top guys, in boxing, yeah?”

SB: Basically, yeah.

MM: “The hot properties in boxing and a kid with fourteen fights beat them down. That’s the star power and the quality of what we have in Mike and the machine that we’ve put behind him. This year the machine is going to go full force because last year we only had five months to be able to do that. Now, we’re playing at a different level, with the development of Mike’s popularity. He has a tremendous fan base, spread out across America, because we’ve turned him into a crossover appeal fighter. He can fight in Latino communities, Afro-American communities, Greek communities, Jewish communities and everybody shows up to watch this kid fight, or they turn on their TVs to watch this kid fight.

“Next week the audience figures for Showbox are going to be phenomenal. This is the fourth consecutive time that Mike is back on Showbox. Four in a row, which has never been done before by a fighter on Showbox. That’s power. That means the network is bringing in some tremendous numbers.”

SB: It sounds like the money is coming in for Showtime and they want to keep that going.

MM: “Plus, this is the third time we’re going back to the same casino and that’s never been done either, so their draw must be phenomenal every time Mike fights there. We’re making everybody money. So, we understand what we have, what we need to do, and our program this year is mapped out. We will fight Oscar Diaz, try to get Henry Bruseles after that, then we’ll call out Bojado or anybody else who thinks they can step up to the plate against a guy who without question will win a world title and is destined to be a champion. We will get him into a mandatory position by December. I’m not just talking about the WBO because he’s already number six in there, I’m talking in at least two or maybe even three of the sanctioning bodies. That’s our plan.”

SB: That’s real impressive Mike and that’s all the questions I had for both of you, as you answered any remaining ones I may have had in that last answer. Is there anything else you’d like to say in closing?

MM: “Just that I’ve been in promotions for ten years of my life with Panos Eliades, Lennox Lewis’ former promoter. I was under Frank Maloney, who was in the company as well, so I’ve been in the business with some of the best. We at Cestus love the media and we know that the media is all important in this business, so we’re very media friendly. Cestus Management is the real deal and if Oscar Diaz is man enough to step into the ring with us we will give him a decent payday.”

Richard Eberline can be reached at richardeberline@fastmail.fm