Exclusive Boxing Interview: Kristian Vasquez

Amateur Standout Makes Pro Debut This Week!

Two time New York Golden Glove Champion Kristian Vasquez will make his professional debut against Ronnie Howell this Friday at the Huntington Hilton in Huntington, NY. After winning both the 2005 125 lb Novice and 2006 132 lb Open NY Golden Gloves Championships, Vasquez is ready to enter the ring as a professional fighter in the super featherweight division.

Click for larger image © Jim Everett Saddo Boxing

As if entering into the professional boxing world is not enough challenge, Vasquez has a family, a full-time job, runs his own boxing gym and also promotes amateur bouts under the NYABC, an organization he founded within the last two years. With his natural athleticism, ability and support from his family and friends, his potential could truly be whatever he decides to make of it.

Here is what Kristian Vasquez had to say about his amateur career and his thoughts on becoming a professional fighter, only on SaddoBoxing.

SaddoBoxing: Let’s start off by speaking about your amateur career. What was your amateur record?

Kristian Vasquez: “14-1”.

SB: Tell me about what you feel was the highlight of you amateur career?

KV: “The highlight of my amateur career was the NY Golden Glove Championships.”

SB: Low point?

KV: “After winning the NY Golden Gloves and going to the National Golden Gloves, I did not take it seriously and I lost in the second round to the person that won the whole thing. I feel if I went there with a different mentality I could have won.”

SB: What was the driving factor of you not having the right mentality for the National Golden Gloves?

KV: “I felt after winning two Glove titles I was satisfied and I might not continue boxing anymore and put more focus in my business and that’s it. That was my driving factor in not going out there with the right mentality and going out there for a vacation and the experience, when I should have gone out there for the win and the title.”

SB: How did you get started in boxing?

KV: “My family was big into watching the fights when I was a kid. Five, six, seven years old growing up watching the Pay Per View events, watching Macho Camacho, watching his style and his persona just caught my attention. I liked it and I would shadow box as a kid not knowing what I was doing but it was in my blood. When I turned nine years old my older cousin, Jason Morales, who was already boxing, took me to the Shirley-Moriches Boxing Gym. He would pick me up everyday to go with him to the gym and I learned to box. I would train with Miguel and Juan, I forget their last names.”

SB: When did you decide to open a boxing gym?

KV: “I was training at gyms that to me were nice but I wanted a place to call my own, a place where I could open up the door and come in turn on the lights, turn on the music and work out. As well, I wanted to make a profit as a business… create boxing like how they have karate gyms out here on Long Island. Make a boxing gym like that and give kids another option instead of just karate, offer them boxing and make it more mainstream instead of underground.”

SB: Has the gym been successful in your eyes?

KV: “Yes, two years still in business. We created a couple of champions. Two Golden Glove Champions, one of them being myself, a Metropolitan Champion and Jr. Olympic Champion. In two years, creating all those champions, to me, that is successful. From a business standpoint, just surviving to me is successful; most businesses take a while to get up and I think we are doing pretty good.”

SB: You also started an amateur organization, the NYABC. Tell me a little bit about your organization.

KV: “The NYABC is the New York Amateur Boxing Championships. That was created because in amateur boxing, there has never been a belt to be defended so I felt there was a need for that. I created a belt for open class competitors for the best fighters in New York, the number one vs. number two ranked, to fight. They would fight for the belt and the winner had to defend it every few months. I felt this would give people more drive to be in the gym and have something to work towards.”

SB: How many different events have you done so far and do you look to continue promoting events?

KV: “I have done four events so far. I definitely would look to continue to do it and make it bigger and bigger, just a big as the Golden Gloves someday.”

SB: Speaking of the Gloves, you had your first experience in 2005; what was it like competing in the NY Golden Gloves for the first time?

KV: “In 2005, the Golden Gloves came around and I was very excited. It was always something I wanted to win, so being that I had my own gym, I put in a lot of hard work and dedication into my training because I wanted my gym to go on the map as a solidified gym with a champion in it. Training for that was hard. I had four fights and going into the Garden was definitely exciting and the experience of a lifetime. I fought a tough guy, Omar Galarza, who was a hard hitter. He was knocking everybody out and he definitely had me on my P’s and Q’s that day but it was exciting because I came out victorious in a close fight and I had my first taste of becoming a champion.”

SB: You mentioned going into the Gloves your aspirations to win, to put your gym on the map. Once you started to compete in the preliminaries, did you feel that you would be successful or maybe you were out of your league?

KV: “I was confident in my ability. I have athletic ability which allows me to have advantage over a lot of fighters because I am fast and I do have a little power and a lot of foot skills. A lot of the amateurs don’t have those abilities so I felt I had a little advantage because of that. I knew that I had this one guy in my path because he was knocking everyone out, I was little leery of him but I knew I had to train hard to defeat him and that’s all it took.”

SB: Going into the next year, 2006, you went up in weight class to 132 lbs., fighting in the Open Division. Was it more competitive than the previous year, now that you were a defending champion, maybe going in with a target on your back and people want to make a statement and defeat a champion?

KV: “Definitely more competitive because, like you said, I was a target for a lot of these open class guys that wanted to try to say it was luck that I won the first time around in the Novice division, but now its open and he’s got to step it up to the big boys with guys with more than ten fights. I knew I was a target because they all thought I was probably going to win.

“I knew it would be more difficult and honestly in my mind, I had a slim chance of winning the whole thing and even before the Gloves came up, I was not going to enter so I entered at the last minute with minimal training for my first fight. But I stepped it up after my first fight and started training hard because I knew the competition would get a lot better and it did, every fight was harder and harder as it went along.”

SB: Outside the finals, were there any other key fights in the preliminaries that stand out?

KV: “Yes, my second fight against Ariel Duran; he is a sparring partner of mine. In the gym, I’m not gonna say it was light work, but it wasn’t as hard as it came out to be in the second round with him. He knew my game plan from sparring me and he knew what I was about. When I fought him, he came with a different look and it kind of threw me off a little bit but that was a close fight and I came out victorious.”

SB: What drives you to compete?

KV: “Sometimes, I don’t even know what drives me to compete. I think my drive is to just continue to prove people that doubt me that I am capable of becoming a great boxer and continue my success, so it’s just proving to everybody that I am the truth.”

SB: Why did you decide to go pro?

KV: “I had a daughter and money is important and the business is doing good and I work but extra money is always good. Instead of fighting for free, I figured I’d start fighting for a little cash and start building up on that.”

SB: What is your plan for your professional career?

KV: “I am taking my professional career fight by fight, I am not looking too far into the future. You never know what can happen to you, never know what can go on politically or I might lose, who knows? I don’t look forward to losing, I will go into every fight confident but not looking too far ahead, that’s my game plan; taking one fight at a time.”

SB: You mention you have a daughter, a job, have a boxing gym and you are training for a professional fight; how do you keep a balance and how are you able to focus on all those different things?

KV: “It is overwhelming sometimes. I have a lot of help. I have a lot of support that allows me to do everything I am doing. My wife is very supportive and understanding. I have good trainers and partners at the gym and they are always around when I need them. My job is very flexible and they know I am turning professional and give me time when I need time. Everybody around me is supportive and understanding of what I am trying to pursue.”

SB: What do you think is the biggest difference between amateur and professional?

KV: “The biggest difference? It is more dangerous. No head gear, little gloves, the slightest little punch from these gloves could be devastating, you just have to be more careful, more prepared, more trained, and more alert. One loss can really look bad on your record. As an amateur, it doesn’t really matter, you can always bounce back from that and win another tournament and be successful. In the pros, you have to keep your record crispy clean in order to get that big money someday.”

SB: What is the difference in the gloves?

KV: “The actual difference is as a featherweight in the amateurs you wear 10 ounce gloves, in the pros you wear 8 ounce gloves, so that is a big difference when it comes to boxing gloves. It’s like almost bare knuckles.”

SB: What you would define as your style of fighting?

KV: “I’m not going to say I am as good as Mayweather or even close to it, but I feel like I have a style like him. I am in and out fast. I have power. I throw different combinations where sometimes I will lead with a hook or a straight right instead of just throwing jabs, more on my toes, fast and speedy.”

SB: You mention a couple different names of pro fighters; you watched Camacho growing up and Mayweather now. Would you say Mayweather is your current favorite fighter?

KV: “Definitely, his hard work and determination, the way he carries himself in and out of the ring, he means business. I would like to not emulate it, but put a little bit of his style into mine and hopefully have the same type of career.”

SB: What about Mayweather’s style outside the ring? He is a little full of himself at times; do you see any of that in yourself?

KV: “Sometimes people say that, I guess… it’s a good thing to be confident and carry yourself that way so people respect you and sometimes people look down on it but I guess I see a little bit of that in myself.”

SB: Do you have a manager and trainer?

KV: “I am co-managing myself with my cousin Jason, he is also one of my trainers. Alongside Jerry Capogianco, who has multiple years experience in the amateurs and pros, he is pushing me to the limits that I have never been pushed before. Also training me is Ralphie Delgado, who has 20 plus years and champions under his belt. With all this experience in training, I am learning a lot more techniques and a new pro style that is necessary in order to become successful.”

SB: Do you know anything about the opponent you are fighting?

KV: “He has an amateur career record of 6-6 and it’s his pro debut as well. His name is Ronnie Howell, from Ohio. I heard he is a slick fighter, supposedly he can’t take a punch, so that’s where I will take the advantage with my punching power. I don’t know too much, so I am going in a little blind but I think have a great chance of winning.”

SB: How are you preparing for the fight?

KV: “Mentally, I talk to myself a lot. I run hard, am eating good and training hard, I am getting a lot of different sparring partners and just doing everything that I feel that I need to do to give the ultimate performance.”

SB: What do you think the difference will be when you step into the ring the first time as a professional vs. as an amateur?

KV: “I am nervous as we speak; no head gear and little gloves is a whole new world to me. I’ve never done it before. I am nervous at the fact that I don’t know how it’s going to feel. I don’t know how my nerves are going to react when I walk through the crowd and knowing that I am going to go to war with someone with no protection. I am going in very cautious, this is going to be a new experience. I think about the longer rounds than the amateurs and that if I don’t relax myself, I’m mentally going to be tired from nerves in the first round. My game plan is be cautious and work my way into a nice steady groove, fighting hard.”

SB: Do you have any predictions?

KV: “To be victorious with a late round stoppage. Devastating blows early… work him to the body and break him down and maybe in the later rounds, he won’t be able to handle the head shots.”

SB: What does your family think about your turning pro?

KV: “My biggest supporter is my cousin Jason, he feels it’s my time and I am ready. My parents, my father loves boxing and he is kind of excited at the same time he is worried, but they are all very supportive.”

SB: I wish you the best of luck in your career and your pro debut, thanks for taking the time for the interview.

KV: “Thanks, Jim.”