By Ron Lane
With the Cooroy amateur Impact Boxing Academy going from strength to strength at all levels, state, national and international and the Jamie Productions presenting the long time coming night of professional boxing, locally, this unheralded sport is starting to move.
On Saturday evening at the Noosa Leisure Centre the professionals will perform, in what is looking to be, a full house of boxing fans.
The main attraction for the local fraternity will be the professional debut of two former amateur boxers; and both have respectable careers behind them.
One is Casey Caswell who will step into the ring with an amateur record of 32 fights for 28 wins. His opponent will be Rob Ferguson. Our second local will be Jackson King against Mitchell Whitelaw and Jackson comes with a record of 35 fights for 29 wins.
With both our local boys training under former Australian middleweight champion Israel Kani at the Noosa Box Office Gym, you can be assured both will be fit and come in with a very aggressive style.
For Israel who is working in with promoter Jamie Myer, it will be a great evening. Myer had a massive input into Israel’s career.
“During my time we were together a lot, so now it is good to be back working together. Hopefully, this will be the start of good things to come,” Israel said.
We wish all involved a very successful tournament.
Last weekend, Academy boxing coach Mark Evans took a team of four fighters, Coen Allman, Chloe Halley, Luke Martin and Lachie Proctor, to Bundaberg to contest the Gold and Silver Belt Buckle Tournament.
This event which was held at the new Police Citizens Youth Club was well supported, and for the Impact team it was their first since the Australian Titles. At tournament’s end, Impact had two wins and two losses; Proctor and Martin scored wins on points, but Allman and Halley were beaten on points.
“Our people boxed well,” Coach Evans said. “Halley’s loss was a split decision, and the decision was so bad that even a Bundy official was overheard saying, “No way”- but that’s boxing. Martin’s fight against Orien Brown of Gladstone was probably the toughest of the evening. He really took Brown to the trenches and scored well with two standing 8 counts, which assured him of a points win. It was a great tournament and we all came home happy. Our next will be at Cabolture on 20 May, and hopefully we will enter a team of eight”
Impact member Taylah Robinson has been very busy. She was invited to Germany where she took part in a three-week advanced training camp and following this she fought in the prestigious international Felix Stamm Cup in Poland. Unfortunately, in her first fight she drew the Swedish champion ranked 13 in the world and despite winning round 1 faded in 2 and 3 to drop a points decision.
Taylah arrived home Tuesday. After a six-day break, she will fly to Colorado where she will train with the USA Olympic team at a high altitude training camp. This heavy training schedule is in preparation for the Commonwealth Games selection trials. In these, she will box in the 51 kg division.
Future competition for our young local amateur boxers is indeed looking good. For example in August, New Caledonia, Ireland and New Zealand will visit to take part in tournaments in Brisbane. Good luck to our local boxers.
