(OCT 12) This weekend has been one hell of a massive weekend with three boxing events all happening on the same night. Now we shall break it down on what happened in each event.

Return of the Greek and John Parker

At sports cave in Stanmore Bay, Craig Thomson delivered another night of classic boxing entertainment with two major returns in the ring.


The first pro fight brought us the returning Nikolas Charalampous vs Junior Tapuni aka Avefu'a Iakopo Jnr. This was Niks first fight since his last surgery and needed to get himself active again. But he made sure that the fight didn’t go to the cards with an early 2nd round KO. After the fight, Nik announced that he will be fighting at cruiserweight a couple of times before moving back to Light Heavyweight division. He said this time he is going to give his career all he’s got.


In the second fight, we got the returning John Parker vs Ben Williams. It was a messy fight as both boxers wrestle and holding. This is mostly due to Ben Williams holding John’s arms or hold when john gets close. Make both boxers have trouble landing clean punches. Eventually, into the second round, John started landing clean effective punches which lead to Ben dropping to the floor twice before winning by TKO. John said after he was happy to be back and wants to fight as much as he can and very grateful for everyone that helped him. John Parker is now being trained by Inuguaral IBF World champion Daniella Smith. In this fight we celebrate Benji Watt reaching is 100th fight as a professional boxing judge. John Parker said it was an honour to fight on the fight that Benji received his 100th fight as a judge especially being first gay boxing judge in the world and his contribution to the sport with Boxrec and other boxing projects.


The last fight was the 4 man tournament finals rematch between William Whiu and Semisi Kalu. William Whiu spends the majority of the time on the back foot but was in control of the whole fight. He attempted to outbox Semisi and guard with any heavy hits. Semisi did come in to land some heavy shots but was not able to get a good rhythm. The fight, in the end, ended in a Split decision Draw. With this, we expect a rematch sometime in the future but first, we will see Semisi Kalu on the Shane Cameron show.

AND NEW NZ CHAMPION

Going down to Hamilton, Cairo George promoted a Waikato fight night to die for with the vacant Pro Box NZ Super Middleweight title.

The first Pro of the evening was Finn Higgins taking on debut boxer Tain Cropley. Tain making his debut making sure the judges had no choice as he Knocked out Finn Higgins in the 3rd round. Due to this victory, Tain Cropley may possibly get an NZ title fight at the end of the month, but we shell only wait and see.

The second Pro fight was the NZ title fight between Chase Haley and Francis Waitai. Francis Waitai being the hometown hero won the full 10 round fight clearly with a massive upset win over the extremely experienced boxer Chase Haley who had their 100th boxing round in his pro career. Francis Waitai now being Pro Box NZ Super Middleweight champion will get a big boost in the rankings. He will also be fighting on the Shane Cameron fight card.

Celebrating Women’s Boxing

We celebrate women’s boxing as we see Baby Nansen take on Karen Te Ruki Pasene for the inaugural PBC South Pacific Lightweight title.

First of all the end of the Panuve Helu vs Jason Tuala ended controversially as Panuve Helu knocked out his opponent by a heavy shot at the back of the head which is obviously highly illegal. Faiyaz Khan Referee of the night failed to notice even though the punch was clear as day right in front of him. Due to Faiyaz Khan not knowing the rules very well, he awarded Panuve Helu the win by KO instead of stopping the fight by No Contest or legitimate foul by DQ with the boxer unable to continue.

Another fight was between a massive upset TKO win for Mark Arquiza over Said Salem in the third round. Also noticing the vice president of PBCNZ Darcy Williams refereed the fight put a standing 8 count on the boxer before waving the fight off when instead of the rule when you need to stand in a Pro fight its the end of the fight.

Another fight showed a close fight which was a rematch between Aung Sanda and Raihau Lehartel. The first fight ended in a draw. This time we have a result but it indeed was a close fight with the winner by Split Decision was Raihau Lehartel.

In the final fight of the event, we got to see Women’s boxing main event the show. Baby Nansen took on Karen Te Ruki Pasene for the inaugural PBC South Pacific Lightweight title. Baby Nansen absolutely dominated the whole fight. At the end of the 7th round, Karen corner decided that was enough and wanted to retire. Now the New South Pacific champion Baby Nansen. Baby Nansen ultimate goal now is to go for a World title.

You can see Craig Thomson show on Gladrap Channell on Youtube within a week. You can see Bruce Glozier show on LOP STREAM on Facebook.