Contenders ready for big showdown

Leroy Brown, Gleaner Writer

The 15-week quest to find 'The Wray & Nephew Contender' starts tonight at the Chinese Benevolent Association auditorium on Old Hope Road and will be broadcast live at 9:30 p.m. on TVJ, one of the sponsors of the professional boxing competition. J. Wray & Nephew are the title sponsors and Claro is an associate sponsor.

The series brings together 16 of Jamaica's middleweight boxers, who will vie for total prize money of $1,950, 000.

The winner will take home the top prize of $1 million; the runner-up will receive $500,000; third place, $250,000; and fourth place, $200,000.

The 16 participating boxers have been divided into two teams: the Yellow Team and the Green Team.

The Yellow Team, which represents boxers from rural Jamaica, has Lloyd Smith, Tsetsi Davis, Martin Anderson, Kevin Hylton, Patrick Miller, Patrick Taylor, Rikardo Smith and Glenroy Beckford. The head coach for this team is Andrew Boland, who runs the Hard Knocks Gym in Savanna-la-Mar.

The Green Team, representing urban Jamaica and led by Bruisin' Gym's head coach Carl Grant, is Ricardo Planter, Sakima Mullings, Donovan Campbell, Devon Moncrieffe, Ian Smith, Anthony Osbourne, Terron Leslie and Raymond Gordon.

The competition is being promoted by MJK Productions and will take place under the rules and regulations of the Jamaica Boxing Board of Control.

There will be three stages of competition. In the first stage, there will be eight fights of six rounds each; in the second stage, four fights of eight rounds each; followed by the semi-finals and finals over 10 rounds each.

In tonight's first fight over six rounds, Martin Anderson from Savanna-la-Mar will go against Raymond Gordon from Kingston.

An interesting sidelight of the competition is that there is a challenge component, in which the two teams compete against each other, doing tasks set by promoters MJK Productions, for the right to decide which boxers fight on any given night.

In the first challenge, which took place a few weeks ago and which will be telecast tonight, the Yellow Team won and made the choices for tonight. They decided that Anderson will go up against Gordon. The obvious reason is that they think Anderson will defeat Gordon. Boxing fans will see it unfold live and will see whether they made the right decision.

The series will run for 15 consecutive Wednesday nights at 9:30.