JANUARY 26TH, 2024
Jeff Poritz: a look into the Bay to Bay Enterprise & Boxing Brand
At the young age of 10, Jeff Poritz stepped into the amateur boxing scene of south Florida with a youthful, bully-build. It became quickly clear that his tenacity from such a young age would certainly have some say so to how his boxing career and life would eventually turn out.
As the young Jeff moved through the amateur ranks of South Florida, notice was taken and Jeff entered his fist professional boxing camp just a few short years after breaking into the boxing scene. It's not everyday a 13 year old kid is blessed to train and spar along side the likes of Nate Campbell and Arturo Gatti, let alone at an iconic gym established by the great Buddy McGirt, the ex-champ turned world-class trainer who had a stable of consummate killers at the time.
As Jeff's amateur boxing career advanced, even to the point of USA Boxing's Junior Olympics, the regimented training and discipline of the sport "you can't play" was cemented into his very ethos. The contributions the sport had on Jeff from his youth-long dedication to boxing would lead him to where he is today, and today at 35 years of age Jeff Poritz owns and operates one of the southeastern United States finest amateur and professional private gyms located at his even more impressive Bay to Bay Resinous Coatings company, a global specialty-contractor that is leading the construction industry in commercial and industrial flooring.
Founded in 2011, Bay to Bay Resinous Coatings began as a gritty outfit, fighting the fact that being a smaller, young company could only prove a lack of formidability. Nonetheless, Jeff and Bay to Bay punched round by round to stay in the fight. By 2018, Jeff's company began growing exponentially as the formerly crippling aspect of being young and small turned attractive to larger scale builders, opening the door of opportunity for Bay to Bay to show the contracting world just how hard they worked in the training camp of small business.
Today, Jeff is known as President and CEO of Bay to Bay Resinous Coatings with more than three dozen folks making up the team. But thats not all you'll hear him referred to as. "Coach" is heard by more than a dozen stablemen at his Bay to Bay Boxing gym, where he is head trainer and the mind behind several amateur stars, professional prospects, up and coming stars.
So how does all this tie to MBFUMA and cigars? Jeff and MBFUMA's founder, Jared Michaeli I. not only happen to go way back to their school days as a couple of street kids thrusted into the work force at probably too early of an age, but Jeff's first pupil on his journey to learning his passion in training fighters was Jared. The two have not only remained close in their friendship and shared decades reminiscing over cigars, but have also kept connected in the sport of boxing, with Jared frequenting Jeff's fighters camps to assist the up-and-coming trainer and his stable of fighters. While Jared's ties to boxing and his involvement took a path of its own, traveling across numerous countries covering and involving himself in high-level, pay-per-view fights, all roads lead back to where one started, and again Jeff and Jared have connected at a cross roads on the map of their mid-30's.
In 2022, the duo connected on a project which brought to the cigar world Bay to Bay Professional Boxing - "Round 1". The collaboration joined Jeff and Jared, as well as Miami's own popular Art Basel artist Homero Ganem. The blend, crafted by MBFUMA exclusively for Bay to Bay in Estelí, Nicaragua is offered in limited runs of three count collector boxes, where a gorgeous Ecuadorian Maduro wrapper finesses the nicaraguan binder and fillers from the Condega and Jalapa Valley's. The cigars are adorned by a familiar cigar ring, a play on the most coveted belt in boxing, the green WBC belt which embodies the style of MBFUMA with a Bay to Bay flare and BTB center logo.
Offered only by Jeff personally, who hands his partners, clients, and friends his ultra-premium project, BTB - "Round 1" is also purveyed on the MBFUMA website. Both Bay to Bay, MBFUMA, and Homero Ganem are proud to announce that in Q2 of 2024, the next step in the collaboration, naturally named "Round 2", will be introduced to the market. Featuring the same blend and vitola of the "Round 1" cigar but with an even more prestigious crop year wrapper, "Round 2" will also be offered in a three count collector box with some unique changes, and of course the next staple of Homero Ganem's custom artwork for Bay to Bay, featuring the second of three fights known as the Trilogy of War between Micky Ward and Arturo Gatti.
Stay tuned for the next articles that tell the story of once again how cigars bring worlds together, and the outcome of when the joy of tobacco and aligned-thought folksy with a shared drive for excellence, bond over creativity and ingenuity.