National Gym clean up at Horace Phillips Memorial

The National Gym seem to be doing something right as they had an almost perfect night this past weekend as the Barbados Amateur Boxing Association hosted the 2017 edition of the Horace Phillips Memorial Tournament. Held on Saturday night at the Kensington Bond, as one of the few remaining local boxing gyms, National Gym stamped their dominance on the local boxing scene by winning all but one of the night's bouts.

The National Gym opened the night with a win as Teven Brewster beat Zari Brewster of Hard Judgement in a youth Lightweight bout by Technical Knock Out (TKO) in the second round. The next two bouts would go to them as well as Dario Cheeseman and Donte Powlett, both fighting out of the Red corner, beat Avery Lorde and Sherwade Dear of Thunderbird Gym in Middleweight and Heavyweight match-ups. Cheeseman beat Lorde by TKO in the second round, while Powlett bested Dear by knockout in the first.

The Seniors saw Peter Murray of National Gym taking a first-round win over Mikhail Cox of Thunderbird in the first of two Light Welterweight bouts. Stevenson Lythcott, the lone Belfield Gym rep, failed to impress as he was beaten four-one on points by Justin Edwards from the National Gym.

After winning every bout, the National Gym hit a snag on their way to a perfect night when Jamal Edmund could not get around Kiomel Miller of Thunderbird Gym. Edmund looked the more-technical of the two tall Middleweights and out-boxed his opponent in the first round. However, in the second, Miller although not as clean, landed some heavy punches which resulted in him drawing blood from Edmund's nose, forcing the match to end.

The highlight of the night came after, as three Elite bouts featuring overseas fighters took centre-stage. Jamali Breedy of National Gym was up first in a Bantamweight bout against Simon Joseph of Dominica. Going on to take the Best Boxer of the Tournament award, Breedy made short work of the opposition, ending the fight in the first round with a big body-shot to Joseph.

A Lightweight bout saw Brandon Lee of the National Gym winning over Dominica's Jamesy Greenaway, while in the Middleweight, Ision Fraser, also of National Gym came away victorious in his fight against Royston Cooke of Dominica. (MP)