A gift and a curse - Former Contender champs have mixed feelings

Three former Contender Series champions say the tournament, which has been stopped because former title sponsors Wray and Nephews ended its partnership, brought both positives and negatives for the sport locally.

Two-time champion Sakima ‘Mr Smooth’ Mullings says that The Contender did a good job in putting boxing back into the living rooms of many Jamaicans who had become unfamiliar with the sport.

“I feel that it came about when Jamaican boxing was on life support,” he said. “The general public wasn’t aware of what was going on in local boxing. The Contender was that spark to get the casual fan interested in boxing again.

“For me, The Contender was a gift and a curse. It has brought me a lot of exposure, but I feel that the country has watched me succeed and watched me fail. In the first season of The Contender, I had expectations of winning it. But after losing, I figured out what went wrong and picked myself up. From 2011 to 2014, it was a long climb to the top.

“Over the eight years of Contender, we became veterans. I have almost 30 fights. I should have fought for a world title twice already, but because of the dynamic of Jamaican boxing, it was Contender, and that was it.

Lack of big fights

“No other big fights came to Jamaica. There’s no system in place for what a fighter like myself is supposed to do after The Contender. They kind of eliminated the promoters out of Jamaican boxing. There are no promoters that are willing to take up a risk. There’s no beginning ground and nothing in place for a fighter’s career after winning The Contender to eventually move on to winning world titles.”

The 2014 and 2017 champion says that The Contender allowed for too many mismatches where inexperienced youngsters just going professional faced seasoned boxers.

“Experience is the most telling factor when it comes to determining who’s going to win a fight,” he said.

“Sometimes, asking a fighter with zero fights to go against one with 30 fights is a tall obstacle for them to overcome.”

Devon ‘Concrete’ Moncriffe won the tournament in 2013. Now 42 years old, Moncriffe acknowledges that his career is in its latter stage, and is concerned about the development of younger talent.

“Mi never feel comfortable yuh nuh, because mi a seh, no more show,” he said in Jamaican dialect. “Mi a tink and a say ‘Contender gone, now what a go happen?’

“As a former champion, Contender gave mi a good push in mi career. Mi win Contender one time, mi run second two times, mi run third two times. At the same time, people get to know mi.

Rikardo ‘The Surgeon’ Smith won the first season of The Contender in 2011. Although the discovery of an eye injury soon after his victory ended his career, he still looks back at his time competing in The Contender with fond memories.

“As a champion who won the first year, it felt good because it was the start of my career,” he said. “It was an extremely overwhelming season.

The hype around it was good. Any young bucks that want to start a career, (could have used it). For me, it was an excellent start.

“If you do the sport right and get the fame, news will get out there. People who want to spend on the sport will actually come in. You just have to keep on pushing on as a boxer until that day when someone will actually see your talent and benefit from it or put you in a spot where you both can somewhat benefit from it.”