The 67th annual Golden Gloves held yesterday at the River Rock Casino in Richmond, BC marked the beginning of what can only be described as the renaissance of boxing in the Vancouver area.
It was the biggest amateur boxing event that Vancouver has seen in years. Hosted by the North Burnaby Boxing Club run by Manny Sobrel and Titan Boxing run by Rob Stone, along with Howard Blank of the River Rock Casino Resort, the Gloves this year consisted of 28 matches with fighters coming from BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Oregon, California, Nevada and Washington State. To put things into perspective, last year’s Golden Gloves consisted of one measly match. This year’s was all showgirls and sizzle.
The Golden Girl 2006 was Patricia Manuel from Commerce Boxing in Los Angeles. The USA Boxing #2 ranked American was evenly matched with Amber McLeod, a 3 time Junior Canadian Champion fighting out of Main Event Boxing in Edmonton, but in the end was able to outscore McLeod for the 51 kg final win.
The Golden Boy was Rob Umbach, from Lonsdale Boxing in Regina who treated the crowd to what was probably the best round of the night with a decision over Jason Bartos of Cappy’s Boxing in Seattle in the 64 kg final. Umbach came out strong with a rat a tat flurry of punches that had fight fans in the River Rock Show Theatre roaring.
Top amateur superheavyweight prospect Shane Andreesen (Parksville, BC) fought Tyler Hinkey (Hinkey’s Boxing – Nevada) in the 91+kg final main event of the evening. Andreesen punished the American in the first round and all rounds that followed, knocking the hard hitting Hinkey’s headgear to the mat in a crowd pleaser that saw Andreesen emerge victorious.
The River Rock pulled out all the stops with this show which they are hoping will be the first of many in what is going to be the return of high profile boxing in Vancouver. The announcement of the formation of either a provincial boxing commission or a City of Richmond boxing commission wasn’t finalized last night, but the promoters, along with the casino are working hard at increasing the profile of amateur boxing and moving one step closer to making professional boxing a reality in this city. River Rock Casino representative Howard Blank is committed to staging further ProAm events at the casino and with the participation of two highly experienced and skilled fight veterans like Sobrel and Stone, there just might be a future for the sweet science in the city.
It’s about time.
4 responses so far ↓
B Zelley // November 29, 2008 at 10:12 am
As a 1967 and 1968 B C Golden Gloves competitor, nice to hear about the current activity.
Brian Zelley // April 28, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Nice to see the 2009 B C Golden Gloves will be held in Richmond in May. Would welcome a detailed report of the competition.
Brian Zelley // May 9, 2009 at 6:39 am
The 2009 BC Golden Gloves will be staged May 9-10 th. in Richmond, BC
Brian Zelley // June 19, 2009 at 2:09 pm
When all is said and done, the last great Provincial tournament was the 1967 BC Diamond Belt
Championships held in Vancouver, BC. at the
PNE Agrodome.
At that time 55 boxers came to win in ten weight divisions from flyweight to heavyweight.
Boxers represented various clubs in BC,
Washington State, California, the US Navy
and one from Montreal.
The twenty engaged in the finals were:
Derek Austin, Frank Scott, Wayne Boyce, Dick Coulson, Dave Wylie, Jimm Russell, Donato Paduano, George Smith, James Allan, Wes Craven, Ron MacEachern, James Logan, Brian Zelley, Ken Lee, Fred Fuller, Pat O’Reilly,
Dennis Rorick, Ron Wilson, Marijan Kolar.
and Victoria’s Bill Taylor who would become the 1967 Canadian Heavyweight Champion.
Of the 19 eliminated in the semi-finals there was a lot of talent such as two-time Golden Boy Dick Findlay, and the well know Vancouver warrior
of the Astoria Boxing Club, Clint Page.
Of the 19 eliminated in prelim action there were more well known names such as former BC Golden Boy Kalman Santosim Astoria’s Richard Fleck and the popular Ed Williams and many more.