Russia’s Vladimir Terskin pummelled Williams Ocando of Venezuela to claim the WBC medal in the heavyweight division in the Jamaica Boxing Board’s “A night of boxing in Trench Town” at Ambassador Theatre on Saturday.

The much-anticipated event started off with music from Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley, Wayne Wonder, Third World, among other reggae artists, which added to the wonderful atmosphere at the venue in Trench Town. The large crowd that witnessed the four amateur fights and three professional fights were very appreciative of the first fight card at the venue.

The main bout scheduled for 12 rounds between heavyweights Terskin and Ocando, ended in eight rounds after Ocando failed to report for the ninth round. Terskin, a 253-pounder, pummelled the 203-pound Ocando in all the rounds — winning all of them. The fight took place at close range and Terskin showed annoyance at times, throwing down Ocando at one point and being warned by the referee more than once. Terskin’s record now reads 21-0-1 with 11 knockouts.

The Russian was happy with win. “I feel good, great.”

His Manager Ranson Frank was very forthcoming about the fight. “I think he did great. He was working out some things, he was working out some rust, he’s been out of the ring for a while, so it’s not the best of him but he stepped up and did what he was supposed to do. He had a tough opponent in front of him that hang in there and took a lot of punishment and the guy didn’t want to quit.”

Frank promised that Terskin would defend the WBC Medal in Jamaica sometime in October.

The second of three pro fights saw Jamaican Headley “The Light” Scott winning by unanimous decision as all three judges gave the fight to Scott over Jesus Laguna of Mexico. The judges’ scorecards for the lightweight bout showed Clifford Brown 80-72, Laurence Neufville 78-74 and Lindell Allen 80-72.

It was a bloody fight as Scott got a cut over the left eye in round two and Laguna got two cuts to the face including one over the right eye in round seven. Scott was the more aggressive of the two fighters from the first bell. The fight had to be stopped twice to fix Scott’s gloves and to tend to Laguna’s cut over the eye. On each occasion the large crowd chanted “Rasta, Rasta, Rasta” in support of Scott, an instant crowd favourite.

Scott was happy with the win though he did not expect Laguna to be so strong in the fight.

Another Jamaica fighter, Toriano Nicholas, went up against Carlos Dixon of the USA and took a lot of punishment from the beginning of round one. Nicholas put up his best show in round four but got cut on the nose and the referee had to stop the fight for him to get medical attention.

Round five was more of the same for Nicholas — nose bleeding profusely and being pummelled by Dixon. Eventually the referee stopped the fight in round five after 59 seconds. Nicholas indicated that he did not have a lot of time to prepare for the fight as he was only made aware of it days before Saturday night.

There were three amateur bouts to start the night’s proceedings under the banner of Fight For Peace, which is a programme to reach at-risk and unattached youth in six communities across the corporate are including Trench Town, which was hosting the fourth Gloves over Guns event.

Everton Levy beat Mario Allen in a flyweight matchup, as Allen retired in the third round after experiencing upset stomach during the round.

Lightweights Akeem Francis buckled to Ajani Douglas in the second round after taking an eight count.

In another lightweight matchup, Omar Phipps defeated Anthony Creary, who took a mandatory eight count in round three.

The final of four amateur bouts saw elite boxer Damion Williams of JDF tacking the Chris Johnson-trained Trevor Johnson out of Montego Bay, in a welterweight matchup. Williams won after three rounds in a split decision. Both fighters were very busy in the ring and had the crowd on its feet while cheering loudly for the boxers.

Trevor Spence of the Trench Town CDC was pleased with success of the fight night and was looking forward to receiving some funds to help with the Joy Town project, which was the associated charity event for the fight card.

Fight promoter John Isaacs was also very happy with how the night went. “We are very happy. This went further than our expectation. The crowd came out — uptown down. Boxing brings everybody together, doesn’t it? We are very, very pleased with what happened and now we are going to start to plan for October, which will be a bigger fight.”

President of the Jamaica Boxing Board Stephen Bomber Jones was also pleased. “What I saw tonight from all levels, from the grass roots level to the national elite level to the professional, and the crowd and the cohesion and the family that came out is exactly what we are hoping for and we could not have imagined that it would have been at this level.”