Bess, Cox to headline GFN card

Guyana’s heavyweight champion, Kurt Bess and former CABOFE cruiserweight champion Shawn ‘The Sniper’ Cox will headline the 28th edition of the Guyana Fight Night Pro Am card set for May 31 at the Sophia Exhibition Centre.

 Kurt Bess
Kurt Bess
 Shawn Cox
Shawn Cox

After the successful staging of Saturday night’s mega card dubbed ‘Fire Storm’ at the Princess Hotel, the Guyana Boxing Board of Control (GBBC) will return to its Pro Am initiative consisting of five professional and four amateur bouts.

According to executives of the GBBC yesterday, Cox (17-1, 16 KOs) the Barbados born knockout specialist will face Bess in an eight-round return heavyweight bout fighting under the flag of Guyana.

Bess (5-5, 3 KOs) was KO’d in their first encounter in December 2011, the last time he took the ring. The national heavyweight champion who stated that he is eager to avenge his loss will look to reverse that misfortune while the 38-year-old south paw ‘Sniper’ will look to continue his knockout streak against local opponents.

Cox, who has never lost in Guyana, has knockout wins over former world cruiserweight champion, Wayne ‘Big Truck’ Braithwaite, Bess, Anthony Augustin, Leon Gilkes and Kwesi ‘Lightning Struck Assassin’ Jones. Jones, Guyana’s light heavyweight champion was shot down in the fourth round in Cox’s last bout in January.

The co-feature event will pit Trinidad and Tobago based Guyanese, Dexter Gonzales (5-1, 2, 2 KOs) against Barbadian based Revlon Lake (6-8, 2, 1 KO) for the local junior lightweight title. Lake, the former national lightweight champion is on a three-fight losing streak while Gonzales has not fought since 2009.

Both boxers will be looking to resuscitate their respective careers.

The card will also feature debutants Romeo Norville and Laured Stewart. Norville will face Eversley Brown in a four-round middleweight contest while Stewart will take on Anson Green in a welterweight match up also scheduled for four rounds.

Jermaine King will also make his return to the ring; he will face the hard hitting Berbician, Derek Richmond in a four-round junior middleweight bout.

The names of the amateur boxers scheduled to compete on the amateur segment of the card will be announced in a subsequent publication.

The event is being sponsored by Digicel, Giftland OfficeMax, Courts, Banks DIH Limited, NCN and Ansa McAL.

Bell time is 20:00hrs and admission costs $1,000.