By Emmerson Campbell
After 18 months of creating awareness and raising the sport of boxing out of the doldrums by live television coverage of each Pro Am Friday night card, the Guyana Boxing Board of Control (GBBC) will no longer broadcast the event live.
This announcement was made at a press briefing yesterday by president of the GBBC, Peter Abdool at the Abdool and Abdool Building on Avenue of the Republic.
“Now that we have managed to make Guyana Fight Night a household product that people actually look forward to, we want to take it to a different level,” Abdool said.
“The product has come to the point where we cannot show it live anymore, we are going to properly develop each fight, we will edit it and market it as a properly packaged document,” he added.
Executives of the GBBC and sponsors of the Pro Am cards feel that after 101 professional and 77 amateur bouts, there is a need to take the event to the next level as it has evolved from its infancy stage.
Abdool stated that patrons who wanted to see live boxing can simply go to the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
However, if for some reason boxing buffs are unable to attend the card they can look forward to a well packaged and edited broadcast on the following Friday.
The Guyana Fight Night event first boxed off on February 24 last year with the goal of giving boxing a much needed shot in the arm.
The monthly card heightened the amount of activity and created more exposure for boxers.
The GBBC president said that the monthly event also serves as a stepping stone for local champions to move from holding local titles to achieving international titles, citing Lennox Allen and Elton Dharry who captured Caribbean Boxing Federation (CABOFE) titles.
Abdool mentioned that the GBBC was not interested in making money but in developing boxers and they have achieved that for both the professional and amateur boxers.
“The board is not interested in making money but we are interested in developing the sport so the last thing we wanted to do was make a profit. We achieved in highlighting a young (Simeon) Hardy and current middleweight champion (Edmond) DeClou.
“The Fight Night discovered the talent of (Kurt) Bess who I think has a right hand that can knock out any boxer in the world; Mandessa Mosses, a female fighter, who has demolished everyone she has faced; light heavyweight champion, Kwesi Jones, Mark Austin, Clive Atwell and Ray Sandiford – all these fighters have developed because of the Guyana Fight Night,” Abdool said.
Sandiford, Hardy and DeClou are among the few boxers who made the transition from the amateur to the professional ranks through the Friday Night Fights.
Abdool said that the initiative has brought new talent and has developed amateur boxers like Dexter Ray, Burt Braithwaite, Marvin Ageday, Nandkumar Singh, Imran Khan, Stephon Gouveia and Eon Bancroft.
He noted that the exposure for the amateur boxers has also caused them to be much more competitive on the international scene.
The GBBC boss added that he will be attending a World Boxing Council (WBC) conference in Las Vegas from December 10-17 to finalize a programme that will positively impact all CABOFE champions in terms of earning ‘real’ money and having world title cracks.
The next Pro Am card will be staged on December 17 at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall. The card will be headlined by CABOFE cruiserweight champion Barbadian Shawn ‘The Sniper’ Cox and Guyana’s cruiserweight and heavyweight champion Bess for the former’s title.
As a special attraction two lucky ticket holders will win a trip to Trinidad and Tobago.
The monthly card is an initiative of the GBBC in collaboration with the Sports Ministry and National Communications Network (NCN).
Sponsors of the event include Digicel, Giftland Office Max, GuyOil, Courts, Banks DIH Limited and Ansa MCal.
Admission is $1000, while children will be asked to pay half price. Bell time is 20:00 hrs.
