What is Orlando?
Your list of everything Orlando probably includes Dole Whips and Mickey Mouse ears, orcas, and maybe screams of terror from VelociCoaster or Halloween Horror Nights. Locals understand the City Beauty’s identity extends deeper to the arts, soccer, the foodie scene and more.
But boxing? The glamorous, high-adrenaline knockout boxing matches seem more destined for Las Vegas or Atlantic City … right?
One Orlando hotel has found a niche and is building an international reputation hosting fights not far from Disney World.
Normally, the Caribe Royale Resort’s convention center welcomes corporate meetings. But for fight nights, the 50,000-square-foot ballroom gets converted into an arena that can sell out 4,000 tickets.
In recent years, celeb fighters like Jake Paul and Amanda Serrano, the most decorated Puerto Rican boxer of all time, have fought at the Caribe Royale.
Serrano’s fight, in particular, was an electrifying atmosphere, said the hotel’s manager director, Amaury Piedra.
“You had 4,000 people waving the Puerto Rican flag, people chanting, and it was just a historic event because it was the first time females went 12 rounds for three minutes,” Piedra said. “It was probably the best atmosphere that we’ve had.”
On Friday and Saturday, the hotel is hosting fights that are expected to draw about 2,000 people each night.
Then Nov. 1, Caribe Royale will welcome back Omari Jones, the Orlando native who won bronze in the Paris Olympics. The young boxing star previously made his professional debut at the hotel.
With resort-style pools and other big amenities like you would expect at a hotel in the tourism corridor, Caribe Royale first introduced boxing around 2021.
It was a time when Orlando tourism was down, still recovering from the economic crisis of the pandemic virus.
The hotel’s experiment paid off.
Today, it hosts around seven major boxing events a year which brings in locals staying the night or eating in the restaurants and the international exposure from fights getting broadcast, Piedra said.
For the hotel, the biggest challenge in its changing identity is the extra time it takes to convert the convention center and setting up the seats compared to other boxing arenas with ready-made, built-in seating, he added.
“The visibility for the hotel, and again, this is international and domestic, is very big,” Piedra said, who knows the boxing industry and has connections from his side work as a boxing promoter representing a few fighters. “It just creates a buzz.”
“We’ve hosted the World Boxing Association Convention probably three years in a row now, and then all of a sudden you have ESPN, you have all the major networks reporting, you have the boxing press media,” he added.
Having influencers like Paul with millions of social media followers post about Orlando when he is in town doesn’t hurt either.
“It’s really fantastic for the hotel and for Orlando as a whole,” Piedra said.
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