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Heavyweight boxer Kerron Speid swings a heavy right cross at his sparring partner junior middleweight Ian 'Hagler' Smith, during a recent session at the Stanley Couch Gym.
Paul-Andre Walker, Staff Reporter
THE ISLAND as not boasted a world-class fighter since great middleweight Mike McCallum hung up his gloves more than a decade ago.
The local boxing scene is so parlous now that the island like virtually all of its Caribbean neighbours did not send a single fighter to this year's Olympic Games in Athens.
Local boxing gymnasiums are falling into disrepair, the talent level of the current crop of boxers is poor, fight cards few and far between and virtually no young talent is coming through the ranks.
The days of Jamaican boxing glory are fading memories which can only be partially invoked at places like Ken's Wild Flower Lodge in Portmore where amateurs (in the real sense of the word) pit their skills against each other every now and then, to the bemusement of those who are not 'in the know' where the finer points of the sport are concerned and to the chagrin of those who are.
"That's not boxing. There is a way to punch, there is a way to move, and these guys don't know these things," former Jamaica Boxing Association president C. Lloyd Allen barked when asked his impressions of a fight night at the venue.
"These are rank amateurs in every sense of the word. There is a seven-fight card and six of the fights are novice bouts. Novices are first-time fighters. That's just foolishness!"
Boxing had fallen to such a state that former World Boxing Council (WBC) heavyweight champion Trevor Berbick, after watching the National Boxing Championships at the Stanley Couch Gym in 2003, was forced to admit "Jamaica's boxing has gone down. It's a total disgrace".
As recently as 1997, boxing, while clearly not at its former glory, was still relatively vibrant and provided what many inner-city youths envisioned as 'a way out'. At that time, there were approximately 14 active gyms across the island.
Since that time, the situation has deteriorated appreciably with the Stanley Couch Gym being the most notable gym left in the island.
"There aren't any gyms open today. There are spaces that people go to work out but those aren't gyms. No training takes place at these so-called gyms. The only legitimate gym is the Stanley Couch Gym," said Allen.
At the Stanley Couch Gym, one can find Richard 'Shrimpy' Clarke, who fought for the WBC flyweight title in 1990, coaching young boxers on a day-to-day basis, doing what he can to help with the development process.
So there are signs of life, albeit on a very small scale.
That's a fact which is heartfelt by JBA general secretary Doreen Brown.
"It took a long time for boxing to get to the stage that it is now. So you cannot expect it to get back to the glory days overnight," she explained.
The question of what has happened to Jamaica's boxing and its boxers can be answered in one simple word if you ask the JBA: finances.
"In years gone by, you had private sector support. That is the life blood of the sport. The government usually gives a certain amount of monetary support and once upon a time it used to be more, but that has changed now," said JBA president Leroy Brown.
"Most of what we get now is a little subvention from the Sports Development Foundation (SDF) and that takes care of mostly administrative costs," he said.
In order to get boxing back on track, ways and means will have to be found to finance a sport that is widely considered the 'Cinderella' of sports. It has been so dubbed because it is the under-privileged that enter the sport to make names and careers for themselves.
That, of course, means that the demands on any institution that governs such a sport are greater than most others. However, Jamaica found a way to make it work through the likes of McCallum and Clarke. What is the difference today?
The pulling out of Denoes and Geddes as the major sponsors of boxing in the country was a prime reason for the sport's demise. The company changed owners in the 1990s and the focus of its support for sports changed.
All is not lost however, as Brown explains: "What we have been looking for is to get some kind of support from the CHASE fund and other private institutions."
He went on to explain that talks have been ongoing with private institutions and that some responses have been favourable. The details of the negotiations and who they involve cannot be disclosed, according to Brown, because some institutions do not want any publicity, while others are in such a critical stage of negotiations that a public utterance could thwart any progress that is being made.
Recently, the sport has suffered other shots that have affected possible sponsorship. Brown and former president Allen have been publicly sparring about the sport's plight.
"They haven't done anything to help the sport. They just talk about it and nothing happens," Allen was quoted as saying of the incumbent boxing régime.
Brown, however, has pointed to the divisive nature of the feud and the fact that it hurts the sport rather than helps and is intent on looking ahead, rather than placing blame and bickering over what has gone wrong.
"We can admit that boxing has gone down. That is not the point, what we have to do now is find ways of fixing it and that is what I'm focusing on. In days gone by, the internal disputes of the JBA have hurt boxing and that can't be allowed to happen anymore," Brown said.
Other plans on the table involve reopening, refurbishing and reorganising gyms across the island. There are also plans to start boxing in schools. The idea has had mixed results but "it's a start", Brown explained.
SLOW DEVELOPMENT
Clarke, however, thinks that the sport's rise will not come from the slow development that Brown speaks of but rather from the regular promotion of professional fight cards.
"One of the main ways of getting boxing back on track is by regular promotion in terms of professional boxing," Clarke said.
In order to have professional boxing, there obviously needs to be professional boxers, a fact that 'Shrimpy' thinks is not a problem.
"We have the fighters but there is no promoter. The sport has been very popular and it was popular because of the promotions. Whoever that promoter or promoters are they have to love the sport because it's not something that will take off immediately," 'Shrimpy' added.
"Professionals are the ones that promote the sport and they promote the amateurs. If they are fight cards these guys will come back to the ring," said Clarke. "We don't have to search for the guys because they are here."
The problem at present is that professionals have to go to Trinidad and other Caribbean islands in order to find fights. They have families and so when they are not doing that they have to work. So without promotion, these fighters will continue to be unknown to Jamaica and Jamaican boxing.
To make matters worse, this year there will be no National Championships because of the combination between Hurricane Ivan and the pulling out of the Jamaica Defence Force from boxing until early next year.
According to Brown: "They are our best boxers and you can't have a national championships without them."
The big question is then, when can Jamaicans expect boxing to regain its glamour within the country? When can we rekindle the flames that burned the names Berbick, McCallum and Clarke into the national psyche?
The answer is: as soon as proper development programmes can be financed, i.e. as soon as corporate Jamaica sees the potential of boxing in Jamaica in terms of tourism and marketing of the country's name.
Until it does, the beating of the sport will continue.
