Omar Douglas Jr. - I Know My Time is Coming

By Thomas Gerbasi

Breaking news – Omar Douglas Jr. is not fighting Floyd Mayweather. Not now. Not ever. First, the unbeaten Douglas is a 130-pounder. Second, Mayweather is retired. But that doesn’t stop folks who don’t know boxing or the business of it to often wonder when the Delaware native is going to get that big fight with the former pound-for-king.

“I’ve heard that hundreds of times,” he laughs. “Sometimes I choose not to explain, and sometimes I do. With some people you might have a harder time explaining because a lot of people don’t know the sport. So I pick and choose when I want to explain, and most of the time, if I’m moving around, I shake hands and take pictures, and I let them by with that ‘maybe you can fight Mayweather in a few years.’”

It’s the curse of people knowing that you’re a boxer, but not a boxer the whole world knows about. That’s starting to change though, with Douglas’ affiliation with PBC giving him not just regular work, but regular television dates. And as we all know, if people get to see you, they’ll get to know you. And in 2015, people started to know Omar Douglas.
 
“I think this year was my breakout year,” he said. “It’s been crazy because I’ve been in the shadows for a long time with me being from Wilmington, Delaware.  A lot of people didn’t know me until they got the chance to see me on television and that changed.”

Now his social media accounts are blowing up with new requests, he’s being interviewed by outlets not just in the States, but around the world, and as he gets ready for his final bout of the year against Frank De Alba on December 29, there is plenty of light putting those shadows out, providing a tangible reward for the 24-year-old’s patience.

“I know my time is coming,” he said. “You can only hide talent for so long, and then once the opportunity comes and you get to perform on the stage, then everybody knows who you are. It’s just all about having the opportunity, and you can be in the shadows for a long time without the opportunity. But once everybody sees you, things change.”

Unbeaten in 15 fights, with 11 of those wins coming by knockout, Douglas got his chance to shine in September against Puerto Rico’s Braulio Santos. Scoring two early knockdowns, it was clear that Douglas was going to be a step ahead of Santos all night long, and Santos seemed to know it. So he decided to make the fight a brawl. Some hot prospects will get rattled by such a change in tactics and start to lose rounds and perhaps the fight. “Super O” welcomed a dogfight,

“All calls don’t get called,” he said. “If the ref don’t see it, he don’t see it, and you being a fighter, you can’t afford to complain. It just looks bad. And when I spar those veteran guys, I worked with Hank Lundy a few times and different pros in the gym, and they rough you up. I’ve seen a lot of amateurs get grabbed and stuff like that and they take a knee. In the pros, you can’t do that. It’s a different game. The ref ain’t gonna step in and stop anything. If he don’t see it, he don’t see it, and you’ve got to fight. It’s kill or be killed, and you’ve got to do what you gotta do to defend yourself.”

It almost sounds like the attitude of a Philly fighter in the body of a Delaware native, and Douglas laughs, revealing that a lot of the tricks he has in his back pocket come from his share of Philadelphia gym wars.

“That’s very accurate because those are the guys I work with most of the time,” he said. “I travel up the road and work with those guys and they fight. Whether it’s dirty or not, you’re in there and some of those guys, especially those veterans and pros, you’re gonna learn a lot of little tricks and you’re gonna have to deal with it. They ain’t just gonna let you get out on ‘em. Sometimes, sparring gets a little bit rough, and it’s part of the game. You’ve got to be able to fight yourself out of those situations.”

If Douglas sounds like an old soul in a sport that is seeing more businessmen and fewer fighters, that would also be an accurate statement. You can hear the spark in his voice when he talks about the legends of the past, and you can tell that while making a good paycheck is nice, when the dust settles on his career, being mentioned with those legends may be more important to him.

“I’m definitely a student of the game and I watch all the old-time fighters,” he said. “I watch (Roberto) Duran a lot, I’m a big Sugar Ray Leonard fan, and in one of my fights I even did a tribute to (Hector) Camacho. So I’m a very big fan of those older guys, and I think boxing has changed. The whole PBC is bringing boxing back to TV the way it used to be when those guys were coming up and they were fighting every three months or so. I think that’s the way boxing is supposed to be.”

And Omar Douglas Jr. fights the way boxers used to fight in that last golden age in the 80s. It’s not always about the win; it’s about leaving an impression.

“First of all, you have to take care of yourself, but you owe the fans something,” he said. “When they come out, they definitely want to see a show, and you want to give them that. I always felt like I had something to prove, and I still feel like I’ve got a lot to prove, so when I go in, I give it my everything.”