Biggest Fight Club OC yet
As if 14 fights on one card aren’t enough, Fight Club OC has added one more bout to its Aug. 27 show at the OC Fair & Event Center in Costa Mesa.
Newport Beach promoter Roy Englebrecht said he received an email Friday morning from another management group, asking if he could put on another four-round fight.
“We already had 14, so what’s one more?” Englebrecht said.
The next Fight Club OC is sure to be the biggest fighting event put on by Englebrecht, who started in the business 35 years ago.
Fifteen fights are on the upcoming Fight Club OC card. The event, featuring professional boxing and mixed martial arts, will begin at 6 p.m., an hour and a half before the usual start time.
With 15 bouts on tap inside the Hangar, Englebrecht said he needed to get the show started earlier. He said he’s going to eliminate the silly promotions in between fights because of the high amount of fights.
Englebrecht hopes the fights, 13 in boxing and two in MMA, are what keep fight fans entertained for 4½ hours. Nine unbeaten boxers are on the card, super welterweight Terrell Williams (13-0, 12 knockouts), from Los Angeles, welterweight Mark Hernandez (6-0, two KOs), from Fresno, super middleweight Malcolm McAllister (4-0, four KOs), from Long Beach, Russian heavyweight Sergey Kuzman (3-0), Russian light heavyweight Dmitry Bivol (3-0, three KOs), super middleweight Timothy Lee (1-0), from Los Angeles, welterweight Tevin Watts (4-0-2), from Los Angeles, Mongolian super bantamweight Tugstsogt Nyambayar (2-0), and flyweight Seniesa Estrada (4-0), who’s in the lone woman boxing match.
“She’s worth the price of admission,” Englebrecht said of Estrada, adding that as of Friday afternoon only 90 tickets, at $55 each, were available at www.fightcluboc.com for purchase. “We sold out our last Fight Club OC [on June 11] and had our largest crowd ever during our five years, [1,511] fans, 75 of which bought standing-room only tickets.”
Englebrecht expects a packed Hangar again. Fans have been waiting for the next Fight Club OC for a while.
When Aug. 27 rolls around, it will mark 11 weeks since the last Fight Club OC. There’s a big reason why, the OC Fair has been in town since July 17 and it ends on Aug. 16.
“We don’t usually go [11] weeks without having fights,” Englebrecht said, “but we didn’t want to do it the Thursday right before the fair closes.”
Englebrecht hopes the wait will be worth it to the boxing community in and around Orange County. He stacked the card with as many fights as possible.
“It’s going to cost me a little more,” Englebrecht said with a laugh, referring to paying security and his staff overtime, and assigning two more officials.
“My son, Drew, who’s the vice president of operations, looked at me and said, ‘You don’t know when to stop [adding more fights].’”
