THE Jamaica Boxing Board officially launched its $3-million national championship Thursday morning at the refurbished Stanley Couch Gym, immediately following the weigh-in of boxers.

Following the encouraging Wray & Nephew-sponsored announcement on Thursday, the company’s Brand Communication Manager Allison Moss-Solomon threw some light on the novel step undertaken by her company.

“As you are aware, Wray & Nephew has been the live wire of Jamaican boxing over the past eight years, and to deepen our commitment this Stanley Couch Gym is centre of local boxing. And we wanted to ensure that the younger boxers coming into the sport to train that they had a quality environment in which to train, so [as] to advance their development of quality boxers going forward. We, therefore, invested three million dollars in the refurbishing of the Stanley Couch Gym. All areas will be refurbished along with bringing in more equipment to provide the boxers with a new and improved training experience.”

The three-day championship started at 7:00 Thursday evening and 6:00 pm yesterday and the same time today, at the same venue.

In addition to the many local boxers who will be competing in all weight classes, there are three overseas-based boxers who will be in the ring to vie for top honours. The two British-based boxers are Shiloh DeFreitas, lightweight and Romario Wallace, welterweight, while Joshua Fraser, welterweight, hails from Canada.

Fraser competed in the local championship before. He was confident of winning again as he has put in six months in preparation for the event and was ready to face anybody who was matched up with him.

St Thomas coach Robert Napier said that he was looking to do better than last year when his charges won three weight categories.

Local-based boxer Michael Carter was also upbeat about his chances in the new weight class he was going to fight in, having succeeded in several classes prior to this championship.

The Jamaica Boxing Board President Stephen “Bomber” Jones, who announced the launch of the championship, said that he was happy with the look of the gym which was being refurbished by Wray Nephew, even though a number of things were not yet in place. He said also was looking forward to a good championship where both local and overseas-based boxers can do well as they prepare for more challenging competition outside of Jamaica, such as the next Olympics.

Meanwhile, boxers from national gym Stanley Couch won three of four bouts Thursday night. The first fight of the night was a final, due to the fact that there were only two entries in the lightweight division.

The fight was classified as a novice or first fight for both boxers. It was between Tafari Morris of Stanley Couch and Richard Fraser of Bruising Gym. Morris won by way of split decision after three rounds. Morris also walked away with the lightweight division title.

Stanley Couch’s Trevor Walker defeated Desmond Brown of St Thomas in another split decision to move on to the semi-finals in the welterweight division.

The third bout saw the experienced Richard Carter of Dream Sports Gym, who moved up in weight class to welterweight, outpunching Samuel Grant of Sugar Olympic Gym to win by way of unanimous decision. Grant looked winded after the first round and did not do a good job of protecting himself.

The final bout of the night was between well known boxer Jonathan Hanson who took on Reynaldo Beckford of Oracabessa Gym in a middleweight matchup. Hanson was challenged several times and lost his balance in the second round, but he recovered to take the fight by way of unanimous decision by the three judges. He was the busier of the two boxers while Beckford seemed to be looking for an opportunity to create an upset and knock out Hanson.

—Hurbun Williams