A.R.D. Training Camp

On Saturday 3rd March, two of A.R.D. Training Camp’s heavyweight boxers: Paul Williams and Dan Lyons, went up to Hatfield to compete on a white collar boxing show, put on by our friend Nick Morrish of Brittania Boxing. We’ve been to several of his shows before and they’re always really well run, well managed and most importantly, all of the fighters are looked after properly. This show in particular was also at a really nice venue at Hertforshire University and it’s a really cool place to box at!

 

After both weighing in at their agreed weights: 90kg for Dan and 96kg for Paul, the lads sorted out their ring entrance music and chilled out and relaxed for a few hours before the show began.

 

First up was Dan Lyons in his first boxing bout for the club! Dan was focused and alert from the off, his first round was his best as he established a sharp; solid jab and kept his opponent off of him with some brilliant straight shots and lateral movement, over the next two rounds, Dan maintained his ram-rod jab and added to it with some good bits of work inside and some nice; looping right hands - his defence remained strong despite the relentless pressure from his very strong opponent.

 

Despite his opponents aggression and physical strength, Dan was able to out hustle him and impress the judges with his tidy boxing skills and that ultimately won him the contest against the home fighter who had the crowd in his favour. A great debut performance for the club!

 

Bout number 4 of the show, was Paul Williams, one of A.R.D. Training Camp’s hardest workers and still very new to the sport after taking it up just before his 39th birthday after watching his son, Alfie, training in the junior classes. Paul boxed well against another strong and aggressive opponent; when Paul used his long range and reach advantage, he was able to outbox his man and stunned him on one or two occasions, however, during the third round Paul got caught with a couple of big shots from his heavyweight opponent after going toe-to-toe and the referee stopped the bout.

 

Despite losing in the third round, Paul put in a good performance and he will learnt a lot from this experience; likewise Dan will also learn a lot from his victory and as a club, we will sit down with both fighters and work out what worked well, what didn’t work so well and how we can make specific improvements for the next time they’re out on a show. 

 

Paul and Dan handled themselves very professionally on the day and during the build up to their competitions, both putting in the hours in the gym and studying their craft. The most important thing to take away from the show today, is that in sports such as boxing and kickboxing, there is no such things as failure and a loss is just another lesson learnt which will only set you up for bigger and better successes. Likewise, victory does not guarantee more victories; the work still has to be put in for each bout and the art must always be studied in order to keep being victorious!

 

Well done to these two great boxers Dan and Paul, who are always brilliant representatives of the club.