Felix "Tuto" Zabala (born October 18, 1936) is a Miami-based boxing promoter and boxing manager. He is a promoter and manager of about 50 fighters for forty years, handling world champions, contenders, and weaker fighters. Boxing historian Hank Kaplan considers him “the best promoter in Miamiâ€.
Zabala was forced to deal with national conflicts early in his life. At 21 years old, he took up arms against the Castro government. He was eventually captured and detained for questioning in 1961. Though he was married, Zabala chose to flee Cuba on August 25, 1961. A friend who worked on at an airline assisted him and got him aboard a flight to Jamaica. He worked as a taxi driver in Kingston for three months. With other Cuban militants, he joined an exile community in San Juan, Puerto Rico where he helped found Alpha 66. His wife, child, and young brother arrived from Havana soon thereafter.
In need of money Zabala began work as a boxing promoter, tirelessly putting up posters and other materials. His first large promotion was between middleweights Florentino Fernandez and Rocky Rivero. The day Rivero was due to arrive in San Juan for the match, Zabala received a phone call from Rivero's management saying that they wanted double the previously agreed-upon amount of money. Zabala payed him half of his requested payment upon arrival; however, he refused to pay the remaining different after the fight, citing the terms of the existing contract.
Due to business reasons, by 1980, Zabala felt he had to leave San Juan. He relocated to Miami where he took a job as regional representative for Muhammad Ali Professional Sports. However, he continued to promote Puerto Rican fights as well. Zabala retained his close contacts with fighters and trainers in Puerto Rico, however, and continued to promote events on the island. He bought a gym in 1982 from fellow promoter Chris Dundee.
Tuto Zabala’s first champion was Dominican Republic native Carlos Teo Cruz, a lightweight with a good chin and a light punch. The next Zabala champion was Vicente Paul Rondon, a Venezuelan fighter who was WBA Light-heavyweight Champion from 1971-1972. From the early sixties to the late seventies, Zabala promoted several hundred fights in San Juan, booked Puerto Rican fighters to fight abroad, and was involved in a dozen world title fights. Besides Florentino Fernandez, Teo Cruz and Vicente Rondon, Tuto Zabala promoted Miguel "Happy" Lora, Alfredo Escalera, Angel Espada, Jose Gonzalez, Pedro Miranda, Sammy Serrano and many other main event fighters and prelim club fighters.
For a few years, until the spring of 1998, Allstar and Don King Productions had a copromotion deal, though the relationship between Zabala and King goes back to the early Seventies, when Zabala was still in Puerto Rico. Their association ended during preparations for that 1998 Wilfredo Vazquez-Naseem Hamed confrontation in England. King had wanted Vazquez to fight the WBA mandatory challenger, Antonio Cermeno, whom King promoted. Zabala logically went for the more lucrative and higher-profile bout.
Felix Zabala had inked a deal with Galavision and also staged two programs at the Club Fantasy Show. Telemundo broadcasted a lot of Zabala cards at the Mahi Temple and at the Curtis Ivy Police Athletic League gym in Homestead. The day after the fights, Zabala would ship a video of the matches to WAPA-TV, Channel 4, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The station would air the show, and from there the video would be distributed throughout Latin America. Zabala had been following this practice (independent of his network television deals) for about two decades now, ensuring that the programs reach his most passionate audiences.
Now his son Felix "Tuto" Zabala Jr. owns and operates All Star Boxing, Inc. Promoting fights through Telemundo/NBC network.
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