Two KOs, five stoppages highlight opening night

THERE were two knock-out victories and five stoppages by the referee when the Guyana Boxing Association (GBA)-organised Andrew Lewis National Novices championships got underway at the National Gymnasium on Tuesday night.
The night’s card produced much excitement from the first of the 12 bouts that were contested and it continued that way in all of the encounters, but it was Ishawn Khan of the Harpy Eagles (HE) Boxing gym and Delroy Fordyce of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) gym who really highlighted the night’s proceedings which attracted a small but appreciative audience as they both knocked-out their respective opponents within the distance.

Other outstanding performances came from Akiemo (GDF), Kevin McKenzie (GDF), Jamal Leitch of the Republican Gym (Rep), Mark Chester (Rep) and Anthony Williams (GDF).
From the first contest – a semi-final in the 49kg weight division – boxing fans knew right away that the night’s proceedings would be action-filled.
Watts came up against Nyron Fraser (Rep) and from the first gong, both boxers went at each other, throwing punches from all angles. Watts was stunned by a straight left from Fraser and was issued an eight-count.

Round two saw Fraser coming out looking to end the fight, but Watts was equal to the task and retaliated in like manner. The pattern continued until the third round when Fraser went out brawling; but Fraser looked the stronger of the two and landed a series of combinations which resulted in two more eight-counts before the referee called a halt to the proceedings at two minutes 13 seconds of the third round.
Two fights later, the first of the two knockouts was registered as HE’s Khan stopped GDF’s Jason Mickle for the full count at two minutes 26 seconds of the third round after pummelling him (Mickle) for three consecutive rounds and connecting with a `wicked’ straight right.
Later in the night, the various referees were forced to stop proceedings as some of the boxers were far superior to their opponents.

The first case was the 60kg weight division where Fordyce caused the referee to stop his contest against Rakesh Chandrat (Rep) at two minutes 15 seconds of the first round.
The 64kg weight division saw stoppage between McKenzie (GDF) and Quincy Letlow (Rep) at 2 minutes 5 seconds of the first round in their preliminary contest.
Then came the fight between Leitch (Rep) and Richard Lanferman of the Vergenoegen Boxing Gym (VBG) in the 69kg division, where the referee called a halt to the proceedings at 44 seconds of the second round in Leitch’s favour.

In the same weight division, the referee stopped the fight between Chester (Rep) and Jamal Crawford at one minute 25 seconds of the second round in Chester’s favour.
The other stoppage was during a 91kg weight division between Williams (GDF) and Jason Lespoir (Rep) which the referee stopped at one minute 23 seconds of the first round.
The tournament ends tonight at the National Gymnasium with the finals in all the divisions.