Adrian Roach Dominant In The Bahamas
[Written by Stephen Wright]
Bermuda boxer Adrian Roach fought twice the same night to win his division at the Leonard “Boston Blackie” Miller/Wellington “Sonny Boy” Rahming Memorial Championships in Nassau, the Bahamas, at the weekend.
Roach notched a pair of points victories, defeating the Bahamian national champion in the welterweight final just a few hours after winning his semi-final bout against a Haitian opponent.
He improves his amateur record to 19 wins from 24 amateur bouts.
“There were a bunch of delays that caused me to fight twice in two hours,” Roach told Bernews. “I was the first bout of the evening and eleventh bout.
“We went there to fight, and I wasn’t going to turn anything down.”
Also in action in the Bahamas were local amateurs Gabriel Curiel, who won his lightweight bout by technical knockout, Bruce Perinchief, who also claimed a TKO win in the middleweight division, and Annan Zuill, who lost his middleweight contest by stoppage.
All four fighters were representing Controversy Gym and the Bermuda Boxing Federation.
Roach has several tournaments on the horizon as he looks to become the first Bermudian boxer to qualify for the Olympics since light middleweight Quinn Paynter at the Seoul Games in 1988.
He hopes to compete at the AIBA Men’s World Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in May; however, there are doubts surrounding the competition after Ukraine’s boxing federation joined a growing boycott of nations over the inclusion of Russian and Belarussian boxers, who have been allowed to compete with national flags and anthems.
Roach also has the Central American and Caribbean Games in San Salvador, El Salvador, in June and July, and hopes to compete at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, in October and November, which would be his chance to qualify for the Paris Olympics in 2024.
