Liam crowned NW champion
LIAM Barnes took his place in the Northwest Regional Junior finals at Blackburn Youthzone and made the most of his opportunity, bringing home the title for Macclesfield Boys Boxing Club.
In the final he was up against a good kid from Clayton ABC, Harry Rawcliffe, who also won his semi-final the week before at Tameside so we knew what to expect but had got into Liam’s head to be busy and that’s what he did from the off.
He took the bout to Harry who was no pushover. From the start of each round he was getting some nice shots off but this wouldn’t last and Liam was finishing strongly every round, looking class as he did it in his southpaw stance and at times he was just too much for Harry.
From a spectator’s perspective it was a great contest, swinging both ways but when the decision came at the end of round three Macclesfield boys had a new northwest champion with a unanimous win and well deserved with all the hard work.
Now it’s on to the nationals, well done Liam Barnes.
Also in the final was George Oliver against Kayden Athca from Metro.
These kids have great records and Tommy Battle, the head coach for Metro, knows his stuff.
George boxed Kayden’s team mate on our show a few weeks earlier so they’d had a good look at George and will have been working away with a view to beating him.
We were expecting Kayden to be his best and we weren’t wrong – this was another great contest as each boxer picked their shots.
George was catching Kayden every time he came forward with a lead hook and his back hand and they were clean scoring shots and looked quality.
Kayden on the other hand looked to have the better shots when they both went toe to toe so we told George to focus, wait for the shots and carry on
catching with the hook and backhand as he just didn’t see them.
This was a true game of chess bout with both kids thinking, setting traps and getting the shots off, a real
50/50 bout with both boxers showing class and come the third the judges had decided that Kayden had done that little bit more and gave him the win.
No complaints and these two were straight to congratulate each other which is nice to see.
George will come back stronger next time