THE British Lionhearts return to York Hall on Thursday, March 19 in desperate need of win against the Morocco Atlas Lions. The GB franchise are 2-7 in their team matches so far in the World Series of Boxing.
Boxing on Thursday are some young prospects to look out for. London light-heavyweight Joshua Buatsi makes his WSB debut in a tough bout against Peter Mullenberg. The Dutchman is one of the top 81kgs boxers in Europe (see this week’s issue of Boxing News for our rankings). But Buatsi, who won the Elite national championships last year, has a style that could be effective in the WSB format.
Birtley’s Luke McCormack is a quality lightweight who is a new addition to the international scene. He makes a first appearance against Morocco’s Abdellah Boudrar.
Earlsfield super-heavyweight Joe Joyce is performing well in this season’s WSB but needs to maintain his winning run to stay in the mix for Olympic qualification. The top ranked 91&kgs at the end of the season wins a place at Rio 2016. At the moment Joyce is in second place, just one point behind Filip Hrgovic.
“Qualifying for the Olympics is the main goal for me with WSB, so the aim is simply to keep winning and maintain my unbeaten record through the season,” Joe said. “Hrgovic is in the other group and I will not get to face him in the regular season, so I just need to focus on what I can do, keep winning and hope that he slips-up at some point as he will have to face some good opponents.”
Joyce boxes Abdeljalil Abouhamada on Thursday. Also on the show are welterweight Ekow Essuman, who’s performed well so far for the Lionhearts. The Nottingham man boxes Mohammed Rabii. Kelvin De La Nieve, a Spanish flyweight on the Lionhearts franchise will also be in action against Achraf Kharroubi.
For more amateur boxing news and features don’t miss this week’s issue of the magazine
