Put up or shut up time for McRae and De Clou
WHEN the timekeeper hits the bell for tonight’s main bout in the 16th Guyana Boxing Board of Control (GBBC)/Guyana Amateur Boxing Association (GABA) ProAm Friday Night Fights between Joel McRae and Edmond De Clou it will be put up or shut up time for both pugilists at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
The first time they met on last December’s card, De Clou walked away with a unanimous decision, which according to McRae, was a gift.
This time around, each boxer promises to prove to each other, he is the better man, but according to De Clou, even though McRae packs a powerful punch, he is confident of getting past his opponent especially after witnessing his last fight against Denny Dalton.
“I will tell you no lie, he does hit hard and I am speaking from the experience gained in the first fight so one of my plans and the most important one also, is to stay away from his power punches. As long as I can do that and I know I will, there is no way under the sun he can beat me,” said De Clou whose record reads 6-1-1, including a 4-0 record for this year.
He added, “Honestly, I thought he would have defeated Denny more convincingly, but he did not and in fact, he did not do anything to impress me in that fight so I am not scared of him at all. When you compare the fighters he fought to mine, he has not fought anybody reputable, apart from Denny.
And against Denny, he got in a few shots and was looking for a knockout even though he said otherwise after the bout, but could not finish him off. What makes him think he can catch me the same way and finish the job?  All he does is talk, talk and more talk. In fact I think Digicel should employ him as their Blah, Blah mascot seeing that he talks a lot.
But while De Clou was exuding confidence ahead of tonight’s fight, his 25-year-old opponent whose record reads 5-1-1, said he is out to extract revenge for his loss last December, which he labels a gift and fluke all together.
“I have to label this as a redemption fight. I don’t really want to make any predictions but I’m looking for a knockout, somebody has to go to prove who the better man is and certainly I intend to do that Friday night.
“I will not be giving away too much of my game plan now, but what you need to know is my fitness level is there. We are working on some other things in the gym as well. I know I will be going against a moving target but every tree can get cut down,” McRae concluded.
From the talks flowing from the mouth of these two pugilists, tonight’s encounter should be a scorcher, especially with an intermediate middleweight title at stake and a shot at national middleweight champion Howard Eastman’s title sometime in the future.
Other fights on the card, which will for the first time have four overseas professional fighters on show, will feature Barbados-based Guyanese Selwyn Lett taking on Orlon Rogers in a bantamweight encounter and Anthony Augustine facing Julian Tanis from Barbados in a heavyweight fixture.
Four amateur fighters, including Guyana’s two amateur representatives at the upcoming Commonwealth Youth Games, will be in action, when Marvin Ageday takes on Kishon Simon in a junior welterweight bout and Benjamin Henry faces Mark Anthony in a bantamweight match-up.
Marlon Darrel will look to outclass Lester Fraser while Dexter Wray will battle Kevin Allicock in the other two amateur bouts. The card punches off at 20:00hrs and will be carried live on NCN Channel 11. An admission fee of $1 000 will be charged for adults and $500 for children.