Fight Nights lightens weight of violence in Olympic Gardens
Published:Monday | July 3, 2023 | 1:27 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
With 638 murders recorded in Jamaica up to June 24, residents of the troubled inner-city community of Olympic Gardens in Kingston got some relief from the nightly fear of crime and violence through the J. Wray & Nephew (JWN)-birthed initiative, Fight Nights, which debuted Saturday, the first day of the second half of the year.
Just as previous boxing initiatives established in Jamaica pre-pandemic, such as Fight for Peace, Fight Nights saw boxers facing off in the ring in an event organisers developed to push the message that conflicts can be resolved in communities in a peaceful way.
At Saturday’s Fight Nights, there were three rounds of welterweight matchups, one lightweight match, one light heavyweight fight, one super lightweight, one middleweight match, and one heavyweight match, each receiving high interest from residents of not only Olympic Gardens, but other inner-city areas whose boxers were representing their respective communities in the ring.
Each time a punch was thrown, the entire space, with hundreds of supporters, erupted, confirming to the organisers that Jamaica’s interest in boxing is not dead.
Fight Night, many of the patrons said, felt like the return of JWN’s The Contender series, which came to a close in 2019 after an eight-year run. But unlike The Contender, which was an adult-oriented event, Fight Nights could be viewed as a child-friendly affair, with mostly children flocking the field to see boxers who, for some, are role models from their communities.
Pavel Smith, marketing manager at JWN, told The Gleaner that the company was happy to bring boxing back to life in Jamaica and that there was no better time to host the new event than the first day of July, when families are looking for fun things to do.
“We saw what the Contender [did] and we believed in this platform to develop local talent, and Wray and Nephew is always a proponent of that, so for us, in part of sustaining ‘fi wi culture’, we decided ‘let’s bring back boxing to Jamaica after the pandemic’, and this is one such way we’ve decided to do that in terms of partnering with the Jamaica Boxing Board,” Smith said.
“After COVID was when we realised that boxing is the only sport that didn’t resume and didn’t get as much love as the other sporting platforms,” he said.
Smith also said JWN decided to sponsor the initiative to give local boxers the opportunity to develop their careers in Jamaica and that the spirits company hopes to see title fights taking place again in the island, showcasing local talent, as the next step.
Bring troubled communities together
He said Olympic Gardens was chosen in an effort to bring troubled communities together.
“It’s community, and, for us, community, cohesion, and persons having clean, social fun is important. Wray & Nephew has always done our activities in the communities, trying to bring people together from different walks of life,” Smith said.
“There are many boxers here from different communities across Jamaica, but their supporters are here, and it’s an incident-free activity, and this is important that persons realise that you can have clean, social fun. Look at this as an opportunity to support boxing in Jamaica.”
The next staging of Fight Nights will be held six weeks from now in Denham Town, another inner-city community in Kingston.
“This is just the first one, so we’ll be going back to the drawing board and see how can we improve on this for our consumers who are in attendance,” Smith told The Gleaner.
Stephen Jones, president of the Jamaica Boxing Board, said he, the other organisers and sponsors of the event were very encouraged by the talent on display in every competing category on Saturday night.
“Everything you saw tonight was just perfect and we just want to build on it. We couldn’t have asked for a better debut for this kind of event, because we’re going to the next level. This shows that Jamaica’s boxing [as it is] can go back to the international stage and our talents can use the platform for career developments,” Jones said.
“The Wray & Nephew Contender definitely had its place, but that was a last-man-standing kind of competition. This [Fight Nights] is a platform for building careers … . The Wray & Nephew Contender was about being the best in Jamaica in a certain weight class. This platform gives any weight class the ability to not only start their careers, but all the way to the world title,” he said.