A seven-fight Jamaica versus Panama card under the banner of Gloves over Guns programme is scheduled for Saturday, February 29, at the Montego Bay Cricket Club starting at 7:00 pm.
The card will feature three youth (novice) and four elite bouts that will involve at least three Jamaican Olympic hopefuls.
The event, launched by the Jamaica Boxing Board at Jamaica’s Sports Development Foundation (SDF) on Phoenix Avenue in Kingston on Thursday, will mark the official opening of the Montego Bay Boxing Gym.
It will also provide high-quality competition for boxers from Jamaica and Panama, who are Olympics bound.
“We’ve been doing a lot with boxing with the youths, our amateurs and our elite boxers. Not just Panama, but the Caribbean and the Central Americans,” said JBBC President Stephen ‘Bomber’ Jones.
“They have been watching what Jamaica has been doing and at a time like this, where you have the Olympic qualifiers coming up for the Americas, Panama’s president contacted us to say they would like a friendly international.
A bout, a strong bout where their boxers can have a nice competition where they can get out their last nerves out before they go to the qualifiers and our boxers can do the same. So, we will be using our best boxers, our elite boxers to go up against theirs because it’s a big year in boxing worldwide.”
Concerning the twinning of the fight card with the Gloves over Guns initiative, Jones said that it was a good time to return to Montego Bay where they will be opening the boxing gym that will foster the board’s Glove over Guns community boxing initiative.
Third secretary at the Panamanian Embassy Roger Gonxalex Martinex welcomed the event.
“I think that this event helps the fighters in both countries to improve their levels. Panama has a good story in professional boxing. Panama and Jamaica will want to interchange cooperation in sport because Panama will prepare for the Central Caribbean Games in 2022 and Panama needs help in track and field and Panama will help Jamaica in boxing and basketball and football,” he said.
“I think Panama and Jamaica have a good relationship right now. I think that this boxing event is wonderful for both countries.”
Meanwhile, Jamaica’s head coach Gilbert Vaz provided some details about the potential match-ups on the card.
“We have four elite bouts, starting from the 57Kg, featherweight. Sanji Williams, who was the MVP of the national championship, will be going up against one of the Panama guys. At 63kg, Trevor Thomson, who is actually one of the champions at the national championship, and we will be having Jonathan Hanson as well and our own Joshua Fraser from Canada. He is one our Olympic prospects,” Vaz said.
“We will also be having three youths on the fight card, Ashani Lawes, who is one of our bright promising young champions and Arnold Anderson, so we will pretty much have a good fight card lined up with all the boxers. We expect to win. We hope we can sweep all seven bouts.”
Jamaica lost the three match-ups when Panama was last in Jamaica in April 2019, but Vaz promised that the result would be different this time. “We are definitely going to be far better than the last time because we have an experienced team. We know that the Panama team is good but it is always a tight match between us as the natural talent that we have with less resources, we are a force to reckon with.”