THE Guyana Boxing Board of Control (GBBC), in an effort to lift the standard of the sport locally, as well as to keep the local professionals busy throughout the year, has organised a series of Friday night boxing cards.
According to a release, the Friday night cards will box-off on February 26 at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall and will be staged on the last Friday night of each month. Beginning this February 26, four fights will be contested each month and will see some of the country’s top pugilists matching skills with each other.
For this month-end’s card, Shelly Gibson and Pauline London will match gloves in a catch weight contest, Dexter Marques and Orlan Rogers will do battle in a bantamweight contest, Rudolph Fraser and Troy Lewis will oppose each other in a catch weight fight and junior middleweights Edmont DeCleau and Kwesi Jones will square off.
All four bouts will be over four rounds.
Both Gibson and London are contenders for the heavyweight title which is being held by Pamela London.
Marques and Rogers are contenders for the bantamweight title which is currently held by World Boxing Association (PABA) super-bantamweight champion Leon Moore.
According to GBBC executive Eion Jardine, Moore, who won the WBA title on June 27 last year, has indicated that he would not be fighting as a bantamweight anymore, as he has gone up in weight.
Fraser and Troy Lewis are both contenders for the featherweight title which is vacant.
DeCleau and Jones who are both middleweight fighters will have to get past the division’s champion Howard Eastman if they are to get their hands on the belt.
Meanwhile, according to a release, there are several vacant titles in the GBBC’s ratings as of February 1.
There are no featherweight, junior lightweight, lightweight, junior welterweight or cruiserweight champions, but there are a number of contenders in these weight divisions.
For the featherweight division, the contenders are: Fraser, Dexter Gonsalves, Shawn Pyle, Cecil Smith, Errol Trotman, Leon Dover, Paul Lewis and Gardiel Roberts.
For the junior lightweight title, the contenders are: Leon Moore, Smith, Trotman, Fraser, Gairy St Clair, Selwyn Lett and Paul Lewis.
The contenders for the lightweight title are Moore and Hugo Lewis.
Vincent Howard heads the contenders for the junior welterweight title and he is followed by John Henry, Mark Murray, Vivian Harris, Jermaine King and Cassius Matthews.
There are five contenders for the cruiserweight title: Shawn Corbin, Wayne Braithwaite, Troy Ross, Andre Purlett and Leon Gilkes.
The champions for the other divisions are: Leon Moore (bantamweight), Iwan Azore (welterweight) Andrew Lewis (junior middleweight), Howard Eastman (middleweight), Lennox Allen (super middleweight) and Mitchell Rogers (heavyweight). In the women’s ratings, Shondell Alfred is the champion with Stephanie George being the only contender.
There is no champion in the welterweight division, but the contenders are: Ali Marques and Mandessa Moses, while in the light heavyweight division, Gwendolyn O’Neil is the champion and the contenders are: Veronica Blackman, Sharon Warde, Debbie Tyson, Pauline London and Avalon Scotland.
Pamela London is the current holder of the heavyweight title and the contenders are O’Neil, Blackman, Andrea Duncan, Shelly Gibson, London and Shondell Parks.