Promoter Valdez Courting the Valley

Boxing is back at the Warner Center--for now, at least. This time with some new faces and, perhaps, more pizazz.

Oxnard promoter Robert Valdez, still on his feet trying to eke out a career in the fight game, climbed into a new arena this week when he announced his next program will take place Aug. 15 at L.A. Fitness Center in Woodland Hills.

Trillium Center Court, an immaculate 1,100-seat lighted outdoor tennis arena, will be converted for boxing, with additional seating bringing capacity to about 2,000.

Two years after the Warner Center Marriott hotel closed its doors to prizefighting, Valdez, who has bounced between Ventura County venues in the past year, is hoping Trillium will be an ideal stage for presenting unheralded young fighters on a shoestring budget.

The Warner Center show will be Valdez’s first outside Ventura County. But it will follow the form of his previous four--entertaining boxing at ticket prices ranging from $15 to $35.

“Everyone keeps telling me, ‘We understand that you don’t get much of an audience but you put on one hell of a show,’ ” Valdez said. “People say, ‘This guy just needs a place to put on his show.’ ”

Enter Monte L. Nash, , a personal trainer at L.A. Fitness Center whose clientele includes athletes and celebrities.

Nash, who has promoted nightclubs and celebrity basketball games, recently sought out Valdez. Trillium Center Court, positioned in an attractive plaza amid office buildings and restaurants, has been considered in the past by boxing promoters but has yet to host a fight.

Valdez’s programs have attracted crowds as large as 800, although his most recent card at The Derby Club at Seaside Park in March drew only about 500.

Nash said his ties to the entertainment industry will add an atmosphere of “stars and cigars” to what he hopes will evolve into a recurring event at Warner Center.

“I definitely want to make this a happening event, a place to come and be,” Nash said. “I think with the venue, and the combination of his putting together the fights and me having access to a lot of famous people, this will work.”

Low-budget boxing and the trendy locality of Warner Center might seem like an odd match, as well as a longshot for success.

Promoters Peter Broudy and Gerrie Coetzee failed in separate stints at the Warner Center Marriott between 1994 and ’96.

Spectators paid as much as $120 for a ringside seat in the hotel’s 1,154-seat Grand Ballroom, which routinely went unfilled. Moreover, fighters were far from household names.

Despite having fighters with only a few four-round bouts under their belts, Valdez has shown savvy by hiring noted ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. and a competent matchmaker, Jerry Bilderrain.

Bilderrain, who schedules fights for promoter Roy Englebrecht’s successful ballroom shows at Irvine Marriott Hotel, said previous attempts to promote boxing in the San Fernando Valley have failed, basically, because ticket prices were too high.

“It’s a club show,” Bilderrain said. “That’s all we care about, for Robert’s sake and the budget’s sake. Just give them six dynamite action fights and, with word of mouth, people will come back.”

Middleweight Nick Martinez of El Monte, undefeated in nine fights, and heavyweight Robert Ortiz of Simi Valley, a former crowd favorite at the Reseda Country Club, are tentatively scheduled to headline the Aug. 15 program.

Valdez said he intends to schedule his first women’s bout and is negotiating with Mia St. John of Woodland Hills.

“What I want is to get the same feeling I get working in my hometown,” Valdez said. “We’re not trying to fool ourselves. We know where we’re at in this game.”

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Eddie Contreras of Santa Paula, a popular attraction on Valdez’s cards, is tentatively scheduled to fight on Valdez’s next program Oct. 24 in Cathedral City near Palm Springs.

Contreras, who won the California lightweight title in January, will have a new trainer after severing ties with Eduardo Garcia of Oxnard.

Contreras was floored for the first time in his career and stopped in the second round by Diego Chico Corrales of Sacramento on May 30 at the Olympic Auditorium.

After the bout, Contreras decided to leave Garcia, whose proteges include his son Robert, who won the International Boxing Federation lightweight title in March, and former U.S. Olympic welterweight Fernando Vargas.

“I just felt like he wasn’t looking out for my best interests,” Contreras said. “When I won the belt, I thought things would get better. But I’ve had a few fights canceled. If I don’t fight, I don’t get paid.”

Contreras signed to fight Corrales two weeks before the bout and said he regrets the decision. Corrales is 20-0 with 17 knockouts.

“I have no excuses,” Contreras said. “I lost and I learned a lot.”

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Vargas, who has recorded 12 knockouts in as many professional bouts, enters the ring Tuesday against Anthony Stephens at Blue Horizon Arena in Philadelphia.

The 10-round junior-middleweight bout will be the first main event for Vargas since his professional debut at the Oxnard Performing Arts Center in March 1997. The program will be broadcast live on USA beginning at 9 p.m. EDT.

The fight is the fourth scheduled 10-round bout for Vargas, who is scheduled to fight Aug. 22 against Jose Rivera at an East Coast venue to be determined.

Vargas’ handlers at Main Events say they expect to fight for a title within the next year.

“That’s the plan,” Vargas said from training camp in San Antonio. “I’ve been training hard all the time. I want that title fight by the end of the year.”

Vargas, 20, is ranked No. 9 by the IBF and the World Boxing Council. Vargas recorded a fourth-round technical knockout over Ron Johnson in his last bout in May. In April, Vargas stopped 1988 U.S. Olympian Romallis Ellis in two rounds.

Stephens, 33, is 29-9-2 with 17 knockouts.