Plant City Boxing Gym was always intended to be a training ground for fighters. Until recently, it was a place for local amateurs and hopefuls — as well as anyone who just wanted a good, tough workout — to get the training they needed.
Three weeks ago, owner Jose Rodriguez got an unexpected surprise: a professional management team needed a Tampa Bay-area home and wanted to train fighters regularly in his gym.
Rodriguez didn’t need much time to think about it. Now, ProBox Management and Plant City Boxing Gym are bringing professional experience to the Winter Strawberry Capital of the World.
“It’s a good thing. Now the kids get more excited,” Rodriguez says. “It’s a different atmosphere — everything changed … I think it’s going to be great.”
PROBOX
ProBox Management, which has a stable of fighters from all over the country, has a direct tie to Plant City.
Garry Jonas, its founder and CEO, is also the owner of White Sands Treatment Center, formerly the Red Rose Inn. In fact, when Jonas purchased the property, he originally wanted to use part of it to develop a boxing facility to be used exclusively by ProBox’s fighters.
But things went in a different direction and ProBox soon found itself looking for another home — one that would also allow the group to offer its expertise to the community at large.
“It would benefit the community more for us to come here and work out of this gym, and help the community and kids have a place to go,” manager Richard Roman says.
When ProBox learned of a gym closer to White Sands than Tampa or Orlando, the group was immediately interested: a five-minute drive from the boxers’ compound on the White Sands property is much more feasible than a two- to three-hour daily commute. The group agreed to use the gym and, along with White Sands, serve as a sponsor. The entities are bringing improvements to Plant City Boxing Gym, such as bags, gloves and other necessities, and have also donated belts to be given out in the gym’s Saturday, Feb. 18, USA Boxing amateur show.
ProBox has six fighters training at Plant City Boxing Gym, and will eventually bring more. They will use the Plant City gym whenever they have to fight in a similar climate, but will be moved to other ProBox gyms when they have to adjust to greater weather or altitude changes. When they fight in Florida, their families will be able to stay in the fighters’ compound for a few days at no cost.
Fighters hail from around the country, but on fight nights are billed as fighting out of wherever they’d been training. According to Roman, fighting out of Plant City comes with a big advantage.
“We have an advantage here because, in the big cities, there’s so much going on,” he says. “Way more distractions. You come to a place like this, you’ve got peace of mind, you meet new people. It works out for the fighter. They can be more focused in their career, their training and what they’ve got to accomplish.”
But Rodriguez’s favorite thing about the partnership is that it will put professional fighters and trainers in direct contact with Plant City’s amateurs and hopefuls. Roman says after ProBox’s daily training sessions, staff will be on hand from 5 to 8 p.m. to lend a helping hand to the general public.
The group wants to build a strong amateur culture in Plant City.
“A team is as good as its minor league stable,” Roman says. “It works that way for every sport. You have to keep the young guys up and coming. We have to support them and be there for them. They are the future.”
Both parties believe that having the professional fighters on hand will help local kids become more driven to pursue a career in the sport.
Josué Vargas, for example, is just 18 years old — barely older than some of Rodriguez’s amateurs — and doesn’t come from a privileged, established fighting background. But the Puerto Rico native caught the eye of Floyd Mayweather Jr. and was signed to Mayweather Promotions, one of the top three promoters in the United States. Trained by his father, Tito Vargas, Josué Vargas’ background is not unlike that of many Plant City youths.
“It’s a big thing, and it helps these kids drive themselves a little bit more,” Roman says. “At the end of the day, there is some outing for them — they’re not doing all of this for nothing.”
Rodriguez has always hoped to one day be able to say he trained a World Boxing Council champion in Plant City. This partnership, he says, is a key step in that direction.
“It’s like Santa Claus,” Rodriguez says. “It’s great for us and the community … in the time that we’ve (ProBox, White Sands and Plant City Boxing Gym) been together, we’ve fit like a glove on a hand.”
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.