Local gym Macao Boxing House will be holding “Hou Kong Converge – Greater Bay Area Professional Boxing Classic and Guangdong, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan Youth Boxing Exchange Competition” on Saturday.
The event consisting of 10 professional and amateur fights will be held after a 3-year hiatus, due to the virtual shutdown of the city because of the COVID-19 pandemic starting in early 2019 and other factors.
The 10 bouts consist of four pugilists from Macau, six from Hong Kong, five from the mainland and three from Taiwan at the Macao Boxing House Gym in Fat Lei Industrial Building in Areia Preta.
The Macau Post Daily spoke to trainer Cheong Wai and local professional fighter Cheong Lap Cheong at the gym on Monday.
Cheong Wai said that this will be the first event they have held in the gym since COVID-19. I have decided to arrange more fights for Lap Cheong to catch up on the three years that he was unable to fight and to get him to a higher level”, he said.
“I am planning to organise fights every two or three months mainly for Lap Cheong to get more fights”, he added.
Cheong Wai said that the gym has been advertising the fight night on social media under the slogan “Don’t forget the original purpose, keep moving forward”.
Wai also said that Hou Kong in the title of the event means Macau people coming together and that the gym will use it as a brand name from now on.
Hou Kong is one of the various Chinese names of Macau.
“I want to make Macao Boxing House an integrated platform for boxing, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), Muay Thai and jujutsu (a Japanese martial art; aka jiu-jitsu) as well as getting people to pay more attention to Macau boxers, Wai said.
He added, “We are going to have a fight night on September 2 incorporating all the disciplines. The purpose is to build a new platform in Macau. Before, all three disciplines were totally separate and never converged so we are going to invite all types of fighters to take part.”
Lap Cheong feels like he’s dreaming
After he had finished training, Cheong Lap Cheong spoke to The Macau Post Daily about Saturday’s fight.
“It is two or three years since my last fight and around six years since my last local fight, so I have been doing nothing but training for the last three years”, he said. “It was always delay, delay and I never knew when I would have my next fight, Wai kept saying I would have a fight, but every time the fight was cancelled”, Cheong said.
“This time it feels like I am dreaming – the fight is coming soon – I am very excited, it is the same feeling I had when I had my first fight, and I am very happy to be fighting in Macau,” he added.
Cheong went on to say, “Even if it feels like my first fight, I already have a lot of experience and I cannot wait for this fight, like my dream is resuming.”
When asked about his opponent Yang Chengcheng (5-2-0) from the mainland, Cheong (9-0-0) said, “I don’t know much about him, he is a powerful boxer so I cannot ignore [under-estimate] this guy.”
Mixed bag of bouts
The fight card will include primary and secondary school students as well as adults. The primary school pugilists are 9-year-old Lo Ting Yeung from Guangzhou and 10-year-old Shing Yun Ngan from Zhuhai, secondary school student Leung Chong Wah from Macau with his opponent yet to be named.
The event will start at 7 p.m. and is slated to end at 11 p.m. on Saturday at Macao Boxing House Gym in Fat Lei Industrial Building in Areia Preta district. Admission costs 200 patacas.
Macao Boxing House trainers Janno Cheong (left) and Cheong Wai (right) pose with local boxer Cheong Lap Cheong at Macao Boxing House Gym in Areia Preta district on Monday. – Photo: Lesley Wells
