The Guyana Defence Force (GDF) proved that quantity is just as important as quality when they once again emerged the Champion Gym when the three-night Lennox Blackmore Intermediate Boxing Championships ended at the National Gymnasium on Sunday night.

Unlike in the past, the GDF boxers generally lacked real quality but the sheer numbers of their presence in this tournament gave them the most points, while their coach, the Guyana Boxing Association’s (GBA) Technical Director Terrence Poole, MS, was named Best Coach for the umpteenth time.
The army had 16 boxers in the championships with six of the 11 finals involving all GDF pugilists, but when the dust had settled it was the Forgotten Youths Foundation (FYF) pugilist Septon Barton who was adjudged the Best Boxer of the tournament.

Police Coach Dexter ‘The Kid’ Marques (who will fight for a world title on December 3 at the Everest ground and FYF’s Coach Sebert Blake were joint winners of the runners-up Coach of the Tournament.

Watched by a small crowd which included Olympian Keevin Allicock and a good-sized contingent of FYF supporters, the night’s action began with the juniors matching gloves.
Shawn Sobola of RHJ beat FYF’s Ryan Roger while the talented south paw Tiquan Sampson from FYF showed excellent boxing skills to outbox RHJ’s Raheem Peters in a competitive encounter.

In the finals, GDF’s Lincon Murray and FYF’s Wayne Castello traded punches in arguably the best bout of the night.
With both fighters using their jabs and uppercuts to good effect with both moving forward to land good one-two combinations, the first two rounds looked even.
The soldier came out in the final round with all guns blazing and hit Castello with a crunching right which stopped the FYF fighter from moving into close range to get his body shots going.

With his fans encouraging him to go in for the kill, Castello was cautious not to get too close but still managed to get in some good shots.
In a bout that could have gone either way, the judge’s nod went to Murray as he took the Flyweight title.

Police’s Julian Clarke was clinical in his destruction of an outclassed Wavell Massiah who endured three standing eight counts, to take the Bantamweight title.
Melroy McPherson defeated Ezekiel Persaud of the GDF in the Featherweight final, while ‘Best Boxer’ Barton outclassed the GDF’s Oswald Jewan.
Joseph Gardner captured the Light Welterweight title by beating fellow GDF stablemate Christopher Cummings while Rondel Captain took the Welterweight title when defeated Elliot St Clair in another all-GDF contest.

Travis Inverary of FYF stopped soldier Christopher Henry of GDF in the second round while in the shortest bout of the night, Alex Butcher knocked out fellow soldier Orin Domingo with the first punch of the fight to his nose to win the Middleweight title.

Jevon Thomas beat fellow GDF Malachi Clarke in the Light-Heavyweight final while in an all-police Cruiserweight final Hulman Bovell beat Camara Chandelier.
The night climaxed with Zidhan Wray knocking out his GDF Gym mate Ryan Harry in 22 seconds in the first round.