MBBC duo’s Llandudno win double
MACCLESFIELD Boys’ Boxing Club had a busy weekend recently as they competed at two shows taking place in Stoke and in Llandudno.
The show taking place in Stoke was put together by Orme ABC, with MBBC having up and coming boxer Tommy Healey competing against very capable Zac Heelan.
Straight from the bell Heelan pushed forward as Healey threw counters on the back foot catching Heelan every time, using the ring well and turning off as Heelan continued to come forward.
Round two was much more of the same, although Healey wasn’t getting caught as he took shots on the gloves and covered up and lay on the ropes which sometimes allows your opponent to look good, even though he’s not catching.
Healey didn’t need to do this as he was capable of moving his feet and staying out of the way, and if anything he was letting Heelan build his confidence.
Round three and Heelan came out again pushing forward, with Healey catching with the better shots but just letting his opponent off the hook every time, with clear opportunities going to waste when Healey should have capitalised on the moment.
Unfortunately Healey tired again in the third, letting Heelan come forward and land punches. The bell rang and as expected you can’t leave it to the judges when you’re away from home, so it was Heelan’s night on his club show by a split decision.
Healey was upset but hopefully will come away knowing that he needs to put more time into his boxing if he wants to win convincingly, and just wearing an England vest doesn’t make you any better as it’s the effort you put in prior to entering the ring that makes the difference as any champion boxer will tell you.
The attention then turned to the event taking place in Llandudno on Saturday, with two boxers from MBBC making the trip along with coach John Watson.
First up was Noel Straw and having been on the wrong end of a split decision last week, the instructions from the corner was leave nothing to chance.
His opponent had changed at the last minute so he was now boxing Harry Montgomery from the Llandudno club, who appeared to be a tough kid on paper.
Round one saw Montgomery come out looking strong, with Straw covering up well and letting Montgomery get on with it, but the minute he saw that Montgomery pulled back on the throttle, Straw came straight back throwing combination after combination and was having some great success with them.
Round two and Straw was told to keep to his boxing as he hit Montgomery at will with some peach shots that should have resulted in eight counts but the referee didn’t step in, which led to Straw’s coach telling him to pull the power a bit.
In round three Montgomery was tired in this round as Straw stepped it up and as such the inevitable happened as Straw caught Montgomery flush leaving the referee no option to stop the contest by way of TKO, making it an excellent finish and redemption for last week’s bout.
Next up was 19-year-old Chris Bowes having had a unanimous win the week before he wanted to keep the winning streak going. His opponent was S Olungbenga from the Dyffren club, and in round one Olungbenga came out all guns blazing, but Bowes stayed calm and covered up, rolling his shoulder and letting them glance off his defence.
This took quite a lot off steam out Olungbenga who soon started to tire, with Bowes throwing clean shots and showing his boxing ability.
Round two and Olungbenga came out strong again looking very intimidating but Bowes knew what he needed to do and covered again, then set about catching Olungbenga at will.
In round three Bowes was told to turn it up and go for an early finish and that’s exactly what he did, throwing combination after combination, catching on target with every shot as Olungbenga was unable to reply with the amount of punches raining down on him.
It was again only a matter of time before the referee stepped in and brought an end to the proceedings, giving MBBC TKO number two of the evening.
It capped off a good couple of weeks for Macclesfield as recently the North West Warriors Female boxing team had travelled to Ireland to take part in the Esker All Box Cup in Dublin, with 300 competitors from all over the world taking part.
One of the MBBC female boxers in action was Jess Zolasko, who was determined to bring back gold. She found out she had a straight by to the semi-finals, where she defeated an Irish opponent to reach the final.
Her opponent in the final was Tiffany O’Reilly from renowned club Curragh ABC, and the first round was a tentative one as both boxers tried to get the measure of each.
In round two Zolasko was pushing on more and having some success but O’Reilly was no pushover and was giving as good as she was getting.
Round three saw another change in tactics as Zolasko used angles and fazed attacks to try and get the shots off, and each round had seen different moves to get the shots off and as the final bell rang it was hard to divide the girls both had put on a clever performance.
The scores were in and it was a split decision and after a count back Zolasko was victorious and picked up her gold medal.
This wasn’t the only accolade she picked up as shortly after the last contest she was named the best technical boxer of the whole tournament.