Coaching sessions look to revive boxing
Belizean boxing’s last great moment occurred when Fitzroy Guiseppi knocked out Luis “Lagunita” Rodriguez for the Caribbean and Central American title. That, unfortunately, was in 1979. A quarter century later News 5’s Patrick Jones is wondering when and if that feat can be repeated.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
They may not bear more than a superficial resemblance to Lennox Lewis or Mike Tyson… but you never know. We may be looking at a future world boxing champion. Fourteen men and women with a passion for boxing are sharpening their skills inside the squared circle. They are part of an Olympic Solidarity Certification Course for levels one and two coaches.
Private Kelvin Middleton, Boxer
“We are learning different techniques in boxing. Also, we are learning how to be coaches, so eventually we could also be judges and so forth.”
Lance Cpl. Joycelyn Galvez, Boxer
“Well they are teaching us how to oversee, as for a coach, the different things you need to do when you are a coach, like in my case, because we don’t have female coaches here in Belize.”
Edward Orosco, Boxing Coach
“I’m learning higher grade techniques and things that I wasn’t aware of from what’s taking pace in the outer world which we can and cannot do, which is helping me to coaching my guys in a smarter way and prepare them for a gold medal.”
With championship medals more a memory than a prospect, the sport of boxing in Belize appears to be on the ropes. Officials and coaches hope that the two-week intensive course will put some life back into legs.
Under the watchful eyes of Elite Boxing Coach from the United States, Dr. Kenneth Cox, the coaches and athletes first go through the theory of boxing, then suit up for the practical.
Dr. Kenneth Cox, Elite Boxing Coach
“Sometimes they are probably getting too much too quick, but we try to get the hours in. It’s better to be a little more difficult than easy, so every moment of their time is taken.”
“You have some excellent coaches, some that I am sure could be a level three or level four. It’s just that they are taking the United States amateur boxing certification course and there are certain things you have to do besides knowing a lot of boxing, you have to work an x number of international competitions and that type of thing. But this is an excellent group of coaches that are here, very, very good.”
But just as how going to the airport does not make one an airplane, compliments alone will not turn these guys into champions. According to Central American silver medallist Glenford Gentle, currently coaching out of Dangriga, it is important to learn how to keep the athletes safe inside the ring.
Glenford Gentle, Boxing Coach, Dangriga
“You need the coach to help on that, help the boxers with that, because apart from their defensive tactics that they will use, they need to have the proper gears. Also, a coach must know when a boxer has taken a lot of clean shots to the head or something like that. That could be devastating for them later years to come.”
More than just jumping around in the ring throwing… and avoiding punches, Cox says under Olympic style boxing, its important to have a game plan going in.
Dr. Kenneth Cox
“It’s scientific really, the objective, if you stop your opponent, in professional boxing it’s called a knockout. In amateur boxing, that can happen, but we try to outbox our opponents. We look at it more at the scientific level of boxing.”
“They are trying to come up with their own style, which they’ll call the Belize boxing school, their own techniques, their own strategy. Each country tries to have their own techniques and their own strategy and they are doing that now. And some of these coaching have a lot of experience going back, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty years ago.”
While most boxers aim for the big time, that is to turn professional, Cox’s advice, and he has forty-five years of boxing experience under his belt, is for boxers to exploit the amateur ranks for all its worth.
Dr. Kenneth Cox
“When our kid won the Olympic gold, Reid, he signed a contract with America Presents for fourteen million dollars. Yet if they are pros, they get a hundred dollars a round. A four round bout is four hundred dollars, takes a lot of bouts before you move to six rounds, eight round, ten rounds. And only in professional boxing does a champion in each weight, and even the low weight classes they don’t make that kind of money. It’s only in the whole world there is probably only a handful of professionals making mega bucks.”
For now, Belize’s hopes for a gold medal in Boxing rest on the shoulders of B.D.F. Private Kelvin Middleton. Middleton goes to El Salvador in a week’s time to take on the rest of Central America in boxing. While he will not be competing for big bucks, he simply hopes to place somewhere in the top three. Patrick Jones, for News 5.
This is the second Olympic Solidarity Course so far this year. A softball course was held last month and in the coming months coaches and athletes in cycling and track and field will undergo similar training.