The Covington Boxing Club’s long tradition of excellence continued last weekend at the National Boxing Tournament in Ripley.
Five local boxers entered the tournament. Four made the finals and two, Terrance Currin and Anthony Campbell, brought home national championship belts.
“This was without a doubt the biggest boxing event ever held in the area,” said Covington coach Jimmy Glover. “There were almost 500 boxers from 30 states entered.”
States as far away as California, New York, New Jersey, Texas, Colorado and Washington had boxers in the event.
Currin (16 years old, 119 pounds) knocked out Brandon Villareal of Illinois with a short left hook on Friday and took out Demontae Pickens of Alabama with the same punch on Saturday to win his national championship belt.
“Terrance is developing into one of the top young boxers in the country and is becoming a hard puncher as he improves,” Glover said. “It was a good job from a hard working, dedicated young man.”
Campbell moved up a weight class to fight at 165. He got a bye into the finals where he won a decision over Anthony Gangenni of New Jersey.
Covington boxer Jamall Holland made it to the finals at 101 where he lost to Donte Russell of Missouri.
Local fighter Thomas Hall knocked out Ron Goldsmith of Atlanta on Friday. On Saturday Hall lost a very close fight to Jamall Herring, a U.S. Marine.
“We felt like he should have got the decision,” said Glover. “Thomas put him down twice but lost a one-point decision on all the scorecards.”
Covington boxer C.J. Robinson was stopped by Jual Dominique of Alabama in a Friday bout.
“C.J. got caught backing up with his hands down and got popped,” said Glover.
Glover had nothing but good things to say about the event.
“The Lauderdale County Boxing Team and the city of Ripley hosted this tournament,” Glover said.
“Ripley coach Clay Conrad and John Bryant, the franchise holder of the title tournament, put this thing together and did a super job with it. When you have that many people, coaches, officials and boxers to deal with it takes a lot of hard work from a lot of people and they had it. The city of Ripley got behind the effort and made it happen.”
