Hurricane Milton and how the show went on

On Sunday in Orlando, the impression made by Bakhram Murtazaliev’s stoppage of Tim Tszyu has ensured that so much of what came before it has become little more than an afterthought. Little over a week before fight night, however, plans had existed to relocate their fight to Las Vegas, such were concerns surrounding the coming storm.

Hurricane Milton was described by Joe Biden as the “storm of the century”, and it threatened not only Murtazaliev-Tszyu at Orlando’s Caribe Royale, but forced Chris Colbert-Omar Salcido to be postponed.

By the time of Kostya Tszyu’s arrival in Florida on Thursday there was barely a hint of the hurricane that reached the state’s Siesta Key on October 9, but Premier Boxing Champions’ determination to stage the first non-pay-per-view fight of their broadcast agreement on Amazon Prime meant that until then they had feared that their grand unveiling was at risk.

“Terrified,” PBC’s Brittany Goossen told BoxingScene of the organisation’s concern. “Terrified. “We already had guys going in, that Friday [October 10]. We had plans to be around here. 

“It was relocating a lot of people, and then just not knowing. The unknown, and not wanting to make other plans. It was very scary. Everything was a standstill. 

“We decided to wait on the contingency plan until we saw what the hurricane was going to do. It was a couple of scary days, but thankfully it passed, and they got very lucky here [at the Caribe Royale]. There were some people who were very devastated, so we wanted to be sensitive to that as well, but Orlando was up and running, and the hotel was up and ready, and they wanted to bring it and said we had their blessing, so we wanted to come here. I’m glad we did – it’s nice.”

Seventy miles from the Caribe Royale exists the ProBox TV Events Center in Plant City, which had been due to host Colbert-Salcido on October 9. If for ProBox logistics were considerably easier than they were for PBC, the timing of Hurricane Milton regardless left them with little choice but to postpone.

“One of the things we did is that as soon as we knew that hurricane was coming, we cancelled it [from the previous Wednesday] on the Saturday,” ProBox’s Garry Jonas told BoxingScene when asked about fighters and their representatives calling him. “‘Don’t get on the plane; don’t come here.’ We got to people five days in advance before we got to the most aggressive cutting of the weight, so we got to everyone early enough. ‘Don’t worry – it’s been pushed back one week.’ That’s the luxury of having your own venue. 

“As long as I could fly everybody in Sunday, Monday, which I knew I could, the show was going to go on. We saw the extent of the damage last Wednesday night, and we knew we could get rid of it and get everything prepared. If we had a week to resolve it – and [the flooding] was still three or four feet high in the parking lot as of Saturday night – worst-case scenario we were going to bring the septic tank guys over, park the truck, and look at the little lake that was made and suck all of the water out and bring it somewhere else. It was never not happening.”

If Jonas had reason to be less concerned than Goossen, the promoter – whose White Sands rehabilitation facility is on the same premises – explained the extent to which his attitude is as occupational as it is cultural.

“Everybody looks at it as, ‘Huh – it’s a hurricane’,” he continued. "Floridians don’t. We know how to deal with it. I don’t want to minimise it for the people that lost their properties, but, by and large, it wasn’t as bad as it looked, and we kept it moving.

“When you have 240 patients spread out across Florida, you kind of have that knowledge of how to manage that hurricane so that there isn’t a business disruption. ProBox TV benefitted from Whitesands’ hurricane experience in the last 15 years. It is a super, super efficient and convenient place to do a show. Next year we’re going to be on the road the whole year. [So] you can always take it to the road, but in our case we knew that unless we were going to get back-to-back hurricanes, we could just as easily have switched it to the following Wednesday night. 

“We had 50 rooms that had water damage on the main floor. I feel bad for some of the employees, the patients and the fighters, because 20 people lost their cars because they didn’t move to high ground – their cars were basically floating. Some were almost underwater completely.

“[But White Sands] had 101 things to do. There’s 240 patients whose families are calling. ‘Are they going to be okay? Should they come home?’ ‘No – this is the best place for them to be. If they go home, they’re going to have no power; if they’re here, they’ve got power; they’ll have food; they’ve got people around them; let them sit tight.’

“We knew, because of the property next-door that we’re responsible for – the 150 patients – we have a very aggressive hurricane protocol, and one of them is we had generators delivered, just in case, so we knew if there was no power in Tampa I’d still be able to run it. We were going to run this show, no problem, without power, because of the generators that were delivered for the 150 patients next-door.”

PBC had specifically targeted Murtazaliev-Tszyu for Orlando, but the uncertainty surrounding the consequences of the hurricane on their promotion meant that they seriously considered both changes of venue and date.

“Vegas was [one option],” Goossen explained. “Then delaying it was another option, because we did want to bring it to this venue – we do want to come here again, post-this. I love it. We were honestly just in waiting. We’d have to wait and see what state Florida was in.

“[The T-Mobile Arena] had their books filled and had their dates taken, so we would have had to see if we could even get in – squeeze in there – but it would most likely have had to go to a February date. [It would have been difficult to do it] that quickly. Of course we would have found some way to make it work. But thankfully everything was on our side, and we’re able to be here and not have to transition too much, and not have to inconvenience Tim [Tszyu] either.

“They did say that there was some flooding [at the Caribe Royale], but nothing terrible here, and luckily Tampa wasn’t as bad as they had predicted as well. 

“We’d had this planned for a minute, trying to get back here; this worked out, and I think it’s going to work out for a few more. 

“Orlando’s been in our talks for a while. We’re looking forward to a long relationship with them out here – to bring boxing back here.”