Eagerly awaited Contender Series Two launched

Thursday, February 09, 2012

The eagerly awaited season two of the popular Wray & Nephew live reality boxing Contender series will resume on Television Jamaica (TVJ) next Wednesday with 16 of the island's top welterweight battling to be crowned Jamaica's ultimate welterweight contender for 2012.

The Mark Kenny-led MJK production, which will be aired live on TVJ on Wednesdays, will see the fighters competing for the lion share of $2 million. The champion is set to walk away with $1 million; second place will take home $500,000, third place $250,000 and fourth place $200,000.

The series will be contested by teams -- Yellow and Green -- coached by Andrew Boland and Carl Grant, respectively, and the two teams will face off over the next four months to determine the top contender.

The Yellow team, which produced last season's inaugural middleweight winner Rickardo 'Surgeon' Smith, who will also assist Boland, will have Christopher Powell, Courtney Simister, Glenroy Beckford, Kevin Hylton, Martin Anderson, Moyan Shorter, Ramel Lewis and Rohan Robinson fighting from that corner.

Competing under the Green camp banner are Dean Palmer, Derrick Spencer, Donovan Campbell, Dwayne Rose, Ian Guthrie, Ian Spence, Richard Holmes and Owen Barrett.

Green team coach, Grant, believes his team has this season's winner and points to the likes of Campbell and Smith as boxers to watch.

However, last season's champion coach Boland was extremely confident his team will repeat its success when the season ends on June 6.

"Carl Grant will never see the light of a championship, as long as there is a Contender series and I am the Yellow team coach," he told the audience at the Giscombe Gym and Wellness Centre.

Stage two of the series will take place over the next seven weeks and the two teams will undergo weekly physical challenges with the winning team having the advantage of nominating a boxer from its camp, as well as choosing the fighter from the opposing side.

The chosen two will then square-off live on TVJ each Wednesday at 9:30 pm to see which eight fighters move on to the next stage.

The feature contender bouts will be preceded by two amateur bouts, which begin at 8:30 pm.

For stage two, the fighters will be seeded but will compete over the same six rounds. However, for the semi-finals the bouts will move to eight rounds, while the two finalists will have 10 rounds to decide the championship fight.

Meanwhile, Mark Kenny, the executive producer and creator of the series, anticipates another successful season and believes this year might be even better.

Jamaica Boxing Board president Stephen 'Bomber' Jones said boxing is on its way back to being one of Jamaica's favourite sport and credited Kenny and MJK productions, along with Wray and Nephew for being the catalysts for that revival.

"On behalf of the boxing fraternity I want to thank Mark Kenny and MJK productions and sponsor Wray and Nephew for bringing boxing into the million of homes so that we have the opportunity to witness dreams come through," he said.

Sport minister Natalie Neita-Headley pointed to Jamaica's rich history in the sport and noted that the series has become very important to the Jamaican populace.

"You never know where the next talent will come from, but wherever there is a competition Jamaicans are going to be there to give of their best and to succeed," she stated.

Wray and Nephew's marketing manager for rums, Cecil Smith, said after a very successful first season they will be adding a few initiatives to ensure the series is more entertaining and exciting this year.

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Eagerly awaited Contender Series Two launched