Six Guyanese win on CBC opening night at CASH

Dec 08, 2018 Sports

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By Sean Devers
Named after the late British Guiana’s lightweight Champion Cliff Anderson who was born in 1921, the Sports Hall was built in 1975 and on Thursday night hosted the four-night Caribbean Boxing Championships (CBC),

but unlike in the 1970s and 80s when capacity crowds flocked the venue, a disappointing turn out watched the opening night on which Guyana won six of the 10 bouts.
Boxing in the Novice 75kg match-up, the fight between 26-year-old Guyana’s Alex Murray and Michelson Mathurin of Guadeloupe was the most competitive contest of the night, while the four Elite bouts were all entertaining with the Light Heavyweight fight between Guyanese Markember Pierre and Shakir Flemming developing into an all-out brawl.
The night began with two Junior bouts with Guyanese Christopher Romeo beating Barbadian Tyreec Taitt in the Featherweight division and Guyana’s Mark Crawford defeating Bajan Reshawn Holder.
In the Novices division, Grenada’s Prince Henry had his Welterweight fight

against T&Ts Shawn Jackson stopped in 1:11 in the second round, while T&Ts Jamill Joseph won by TKO in 2:02 of the second round over Guadeloupe’s Mickeel Torchy in a Light Welter match-up.
The Novices bouts between Bahamas and Dominica and Guyana and Dominica were cancelled, while in the Youth Middleweight, T&T’s Tyron Thomas’ corner threw in the towel in 2:29 of round two against Grenadian Brandon Taylor.
The Murray versus Mathurin contest saw several effective Jabs from both boxers and while Mathurin threw more of the shots in the first round Murray out-boxed him and retaliated with more quality blows to the target and took a close round.
In the second round both fighters traded punches as they went after each other with nice jabs that set up shots to the body before a looping right connected to the head of the Forgotten Youth Foundation boxer resulting in a standing 8 count being administered which swung the round in Mathurin’s favour.
Both boxers answered the bell for the final round knowing a good round would give them the win, but while

Mathurin looked for a knock out with big shots Murray covered up and took most of his shots on his gloves.
Urged on by his daughter and her mother, Murray counter-punched with nice combinations to the mid-section and head and did enough to take the fight.
In the Lightweight affair, T&T’s Jesse Beckles, with fast combinations, beat Grenadian Nelson Cyrus, while in the Light Heavyweight bout, Pierre and Flemming came out with all guns blazing.
The Trini was backed up on the ropes from some good one/two punches to the body as the Guyanese dominated.
The action intensified in the second round with the fighters going toe to toe in a slug-fest before a brutal right hand crashed into the head of T&T’s Flemming who received an 8 count.
Although tiring, the boxers got into a brawl with rapid combinations to body and head coming fast and furious and the noisy crowd were on its feet as the Solider, a former Gold Medallist, was hit with some hard shots. Both fighters survived the onslaught with Pierre winning on points.

Harpy Eagles Emmanuel Sancho was the only Guyanese to loose on Thursday night; beaten by defending welterweight CBC Champion St Lucia’s Lyndel Marcelin.
Marcelin’s South Paw stance seemed to confuse the Guyanese who kept moving to his right and into some wicked lefts.
Sancho is known for his power but most of his big shots connected with thin air as the St Lucian demonstrated good evasive movements and his pawing right jabs kept Sancho out of range as Marcelin took the opening stanza.
Sancho came out for the second round with more intent with the crowd chanting ‘Sancho, Sancho’ and while the round was closer the St Lucian again won the round.
Marcelin, with Medals at CAC, Commonwealth Games and twice at the Olympic Qualifiers, knew Sancho needed a knock-out to win and went on his bicycle and he danced out of danger as the home-boy missed some big swings to gain a unanimous decision.
In the last fight of the night, a series of left, right combinations from Guyana’s Desmond Amsterdam staggered T&T’s Aaron Prince in the second round resulting in him getting a standing 8 count.

The Solider from Guyana’s Champion Gym, was all over his man and a crunching right sent Prince sprawling to the canvas for the referee to stop the contest.
President of the Guyana Boxing Association (GBA) Steve Ninvalle said that hard work had been invested into the planning to stage this Championship.
Ninvalle expressed gratitude to the Government and the American Boxing Confederation (AMBC) for their support and reminded that this is a Caribbean event.
“This is our Olympics and is being used to develop Boxing in the Region and Mike Parris (Bronze in 1980 in Moscow) is still the only Caribbean Boxer to win an Olympic Medal,” Ninvalle told the gathering which included, among others,veteran Commentator Reds Perriera (St Lucia’s Manager), Television Host Alan Fenty, former Guyana Welterweight

Champion and Journalist Mike Benjamin and former pugilist Clive Atwell, who fought for the WBC featherweight title in 2014 in Mexico.
Director of sports Christopher Jones commended the GBA for hosting a Regional Championships here before declaring the tournament open.
The Championships continues today and concludes tomorrow from 18:00hrs.

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