“HIS time has come, he needs to hang up his gloves and call it a day from the sport of boxing and if he is not willing to do so of his own, then my aim is to retire him when we meet in the Friday Night Fights in two weeks time.” Those were the words of 2010 Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games bronze medallist Ray Sandiford, who will be fighting his second professional fight on the 15th edition of the Guyana Boxing Board of Control (GBBC), in collaboration with the Guyana Amateur Boxing Association (GABA)-organised Friday Night Fights ProAm card on 24th June at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall..
Having defeated local journeyman Cecil Smith in his first fight on the GBBC’s professional card dubbed RAMPAGE last month, Sandiford will be looking to make it two out of two when he faces another local journeyman in 35-year-old Orland ‘Pocket Rocket’ Rogers in a four-round encounter.
When asked about his approach to the fight, in comparison to his first fight against Smith, the 25-year-old Sandiford said, “He is no different than Smith, in fact he is a brawler, a wannabe boxer who throws wild swings and I intend to use him to showcase my boxing technique to the crowd on hand and by the third round when I am heated, he will hit the canvas.”
He continued, “Rogers is my friend, but there comes a point in time in a man’s life when he must say goodbye to certain things and certainly, I think Rogers’ time is now and as I said before, if he is not looking to go willingly, then I will have to be the man to take him up to the door of retirement and show him where to hang up his gloves.
“I am a CAC bronze medallist and Rogers knows that very well; and come fight night, I will show him what boxing is all about as he is a brawler and not a boxer. Just look at his record and everything is there to see. For a man to win 4 out of 15 fights while losing 10 of them is pathetic. Sorry, Rogers but it’s time to go.”
A look at some notable accomplishments for Sandiford, prior to his becoming a CAC bronze medallist last year, show he was the national amateur featherweight champion, best boxer at the GABA National Open and Novices championships in 2009, while he reached the Pan-American qualifier in 2007 and the Olympics qualifier one year later.
Such a record did not faze Rogers who said he will be going for a win in the fight and has no intentions of retiring anytime soon.
“I am no Cecil Smith. I am Orland Rogers, a boxer and when I look at my size, a man can say all he wants to say, but I know what I am capable of and what I do know is that I will be walking away victorious, amidst all his chatter on the June 24.”
In other fights on the card Trinidad and Tobago-based Joel McRae matches gloves with Denny ‘Deadly’ Dalton in a super middleweight encounter, Simeon ‘Candyman’ Hardy faces Eversly Browne in a catchweight contest and Mark Austin meets Barbados-based Revlon Lake for the national lightweight title.