There were few punches pulled as eight white-collar boxers went toe to toe last week to raise funds for both cancer and amateur boxing.
Although the total amount of money raised hasn’t been fully tabulated, event organizer Colin Acheson said it was a good event full of entertaining boxing.
“All of these people trained together since August so they became quite good friends,” said Acheson, adding the white collar competitors were in the gym a lot together.
“They have to put that in the back seat when they step into the ring to go at each other. The action was pretty fierce in all the bouts, there were very few punches pulled.”
On Friday, four white collar bouts and five amateur bouts made up the card at the event.
The four white collar fights featured eight individuals who wanted to try their hands at boxing.
“I think the draw to this was the four white collar bouts,” said Acheson.
“We recruit local business men and women, usually starting around the middle of August and put them in the gym for three months. We teach them the basics of Olympic-style boxing and get them fit and then match them up based on their age, size and experience.”
Then the competitors are put in the ring in front of the dinner crowd.
“It’s really interesting, very entertaining and it was very successful and worked well,” said Acheson.
The main event of the card was one of the white collar bouts and it pitted P.J. Swales, Red Deer College athletics marketing director, against Red Deer firefighter Ken Boniface. Boniface emerged triumphant.
In other white collar bouts, Jordy Johnston of Olds won a split decision over Red Deer’s Jason Gilbert, Nadine Phillips took the split decision over Allison Dechant and the referee stopped the bout between Jon Lewis and Dallas Lehr during the third round, with Lewis emerging victorious.
“It was successful, we were sold out before the event actually,” said Acheson. “We were really impressed, especially with corporate Red Deer because they got on board in a big way.”
Almost 400 tickets to the event were sold to watch the nine bouts of the sweet science.
With the success of the event in its fourth year, the Red Deer and District Boxing Club is patiently awaiting the fifth rumble in Red Deer.
“We’re after people who want to come out, have a nice dinner and see some young kids, who do this for the love of the game, get into the ring and see who is best,” said Acheson.
On the amateur boxing side of the card, Pavel Aristaksyan of Olds beat Red Deer’s Tyler Sundgaard in the first round by TKO; Gwynn Lewis, of Calgary’s Bowmont Boxing Club, won over Red Deer’s Mark Habana; Mike Rodenbush, of Red Deer, won a split decision over Edmonton’s Chris Hicks; Ben Alvarez, from Edmonton’s Panther Boxing Club, defeated Lanky Brendan Irwin, of the Red Deer Boxing Club and in the penultimate bout, Brian Samuel of the Red Deer Boxing Club took a unanimous decision over Dax Smordin, out of Edmonton’s Main Event Boxing Club.
mcrawford@www.reddeeradvocate.com