Two local gyms in Areia Preta district held two completely different types of fight nights on Saturday. The Macau Boxing Association’s (MBA) “Macau Open Boxing Tournament 2021 Fisty Fight,” and the Macau Special Olympics (MSO) benefiting for the third time from Macao Boxing House’s charity fight night “Guangdong-Hong Kong – Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) Professional Boxing Championship 3”.
Spreading the word
The MBA gym in the Hap Si Industrial Building in Rua Seis do Bairro da Areia Preta, run by Ng Kuok Kun aka The Macau Kid, aka KK, who won the 2020 Best Coach of the International Boxing Association (AIBA) award by the Macau Boxing Association last year, had a fight night for its aspiring pugilists.
The combatants in action were children, teenagers, women and youths.
KK told The Macau Post Daily, “The association plans to put on three boxing events a year in March, August and November to give the [boxing] students the opportunity to fight as I want them to be more interested in the sport and let them [eventually] represent Macau.”
KK said that the idea was to push them to get a local record as amateurs so that they could compete in events like the Asian Games and to do that they must have local fights to get the experience.
Those taking part on Saturday were from local gyms with most of the opponents coming from gyms in Zhuhai.
KK, looking at the crowd that were watching the event, went on to say, “There should be more people, it shows that we still need to do more competitions to get more people to come, so by putting on fights we can let more people know about boxing and love the sport, that it is a very attractive sport but a game in which they have to prove themselves.”
MBH & MSO cooperation
The Macao Boxing House gym in Fat Lei Industrial Building in Areia Preta held the third “Guangdong-Hong Kong – Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) Professional Boxing Championship,” a charity fight night that saw three different disciplines in action – boxing, Muay Thai and judo – with proceeds of the night going to MSO.
The gym was packed with a large, raucous crowd supporting their favourite fighters with 10 bouts being held. Four boxing, four Muay Thai and two judo bouts. There was also a display in which two young members of MSO were put through their paces by MBH’s female professional Tang Choi Ieng and male professional Cheong Lap Cheong.
The Macau Post Daily spoke to Macau Special Olympics Chief Executive Officer and National Director Hetzer Siu Yu Hong at the event after his athletes had shown their boxing skills.
“This is a very good event and this is the third time that we [MSO] have benefited from Macao Boxing House’s events, they are cooperating with us to show that disabled persons can participate in sport and let the general public know that anybody can join in sports and enjoy themselves.”
Of MSO’s two young boxers that took part in Saturday’s event Siu said, “The boy is 14-year-old Yung Yung and the girl 17-year-old Wan Keng, they had been training for two weeks for the programme. It is good to show that sport is good for children with disabilities, it improves their fitness and lets the public know they can all take part in sport.”
Local & Guangzhou gyms take part
The first bout was two children, an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old. MBH had three pugilists up against opponents from Guangzhou.
Donald, who hadn’t fought for a while was extremely nervous, but although he lost he told The Macau Post Daily after the fight, “I feel pretty good after all the pressure is gone. I can now eat more too.”
Hin ‘s 10th fight of his career saw him lose and although he put up a good fight, lost on points. Afterwards he told The Macau Post Daily, “I can do better, I felt okay to finish three rounds but my opponent was very powerful.”
Will, in his second fight, won and told The Macau Post Daily, “I was a little nervous during the first round because my opponent had a little technique but in the second round I felt better and am happy that I won.”
The three fighters did not want to give their full names.
The final bout of the evening was a Muay Thai match with Macau favourite “Black Panther” João Ramos in the ring. The levels of noise intensified as he left his opponent bleeding from the left shin and with a swollen left eye and went on to win his fight to thunderous cheers.
‘Our ring is for everybody’
The Macau Post Daily asked MBH co-owner and trainer Cheong Wai at the end of the evening how he was feeling. “I am very, very happy, now we can put on more and more different types of fights and support other local gyms. I can see that if we add more different types of fights we can let locals know that our ring is for different types of fighters.
“Next time we are going to add more ages, 11-12 year-olds to get the younger children to train here.”
Cheong Lap Cheong (from left) Yung Yung, Wan Keng and Tang Choi Ieng pose after their boxing exhibition at the Macao Boxing House gym in Areia Preta on Saturday night. Photo: Lesley Wells
KK (fourth from left crouching) poses with fighters, coaches and some supporters who took part in Saturday’s “Fisty Fight” at Hap Si Industrial Building in Rua Seis do Bairro da Areia Preta. Photo supplied by KK
