Central Maui Boxing Club hosts fight card Saturday

It’s certain to be an emotional night for Central Maui Boxing Club members when they play host to the Mighty Kalding Memorial Boxing Tournament on Saturday night.

Arnel “Mighty Kalding” Salaguinto was one of the club’s coaches since 2018 while he was still training, hoping to become a professional boxer. Salaguinto died at the age of 30 on Oct. 16, 2023.

“Arnel, he is one of our coaches, he passed away so we are doing a memorial fight in honor of him because he was a good coach,” Leimaia Ducosin, the community outreach coordinator for CMBC, said Thursday. “And he was always there for the boys. … It’s good for us because we want to do something to honor him. We always say when we think about him, ‘Forever in our corner.’ ”

Saturday’s event will be held at the CMBC gym at 1826 Kaohu Street. Cost of admission is $20, children 10 years old and under are free, gates open at 3 p.m. and the first of 30 scheduled fights will start at 4.

The fight night will include boxers from around the state ages eight to 25.

“We have kids coming from Maui, Big Island, Oahu, I believe we have a few coming from Kauai,” Ducosin said. “The majority of our boxers who are fighting are from Maui.”

CMBC held an event in October, the first amateur boxing night on the Valley Isle since COVID. They intend to make this event one of four per year on their calendar going forward.

“We had one in October for our 30-year anniversary,” Ducosin said. “That’s the first USA Boxing event that was put together (here) since COVID happened. We’re trying to get four per year.”

For more information, visit website centralmauiboxingclub. org