This will be my 4th official amateur boxers reunion, with the first three having taken place in Las Vegas (Hakihea 2014), New York City (Pipiri 2015) and Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut (Hōngongoi 2015).
Boxers who have attended previous reunions include the likes of four-time world champion Roy Jones Jr., three-time world champions Mike “The Body Snatcher” McCallum and Iran “The Blade” Barkley, WBO heavyweight champion Lamon Brewster, former WBC light heavyweight champion Montell “Ice” Griffin, 1988 U.S. Olympic coach Kenny Adams.
I’ve had this idea to bring my former amateur peers together for many years and in December of 2014 at the Rival Boxing Store in Las Vegas I finally had my first amateur boxers reunion and it was a tremendous success. Since then I’ve had two more (at Jimmy’s -Glenn- Corner on W. 44th St. in NYC and at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut)successful gatherings that have seen everyone from local amateurs, regional Golden Gloves champions, National AAU champions, toa te ao, Olympians and every other possible level of amateur boxer.
I had originally planned to have boxers from my Olympic trials class (1988)gather for a reunion but changed it to any era or level. On that end we’ve had boxers ranging from 1976 A.A.U. National champion Bret Summers from Washington State and 1976 Jamaican Olympian Mike McCallum all the way up to 2004 U.S. Häkinakina Jason Estrada.
Basically it’s a chance for us to get together, reminisce, tell stories, see old friends, meet people we’ve never met before. Maybe the best example of what my reunions entail came at the 2015 event at Foxwoods when I had Hartford’s Luis Ortiz and Lawrence Clay-Bey meet for the very first time since they boxed each other as young kids at Marc Anthony’s in Hartford way back in 1977!
No: Hōngongoi 23, 2016, 12 poutumarotanga ki 4 pm
HEA: Margaritaville Restaurant inside the Mohegan Sun casino @ Uncasville, Connecticut.
WHO: Invited and expected guests include, among MANY others:
Two-time welterweight champ Marlon “Magic te tangata” Starling
1985 ESPN welterweight champion “Schoolboy” Troy Wortham
WBA welterweight and junior middleweight champion Jose Antonio Rivera
Dickie Ecklund and “Irish” Micky Ward (“The Fighter”)
1984 Olympic Gold Medalist Mark Breland
Comp-U-Box record holder “Sucra” Ray Oliviera
“Contender Star Peter “the Pride of Providence” Manfredo Jr.
1996 U.S. Olympic team captain Lawrence Clay-Bey
Current boxing promoter (Star Boxing in NYC) a 1988 NYC Daily News Golden Gloves 147 pound Champion Joe DeGuardia
Toa o mua rua-wehenga te ao “Poison” Junior Jones from Brooklyn, NY
WBO World Heavyweight Champion Mike Bentt and 1988 U.S. Kē Orimipia.
2004 U.S. Olympian Jason “Big ono” Road
ICE
Quote: “
The wait in the dressing room before a professional boxing match -that last hour- could be enough to strip a man who never boxed before of whatever pride, desire and heart he THOUGHT he had” –Iceman John Scully, April 2002
“Boxing is a tight-knit fraternity. Everybody knows everybody. But a line in the resin will forever be drawn separating those who step into the square ring and those who DON’T. Many, many people make money on a fight, but when the bell sounds, only two people answer it.” – Randy Smith, February 2003, Journal Inquirer (Manchester, Conn.) Newspaper
