Boxers ‘not underdogs’

Press, 25 July 1984, Page 25

Boxers ‘not underdogs’

NZPA Los Angeles The New Zealand boxers, Michael Kenny and Kevin Barry, will not be entering the Olympic ring as underdogs worried about their opponents, says their trainer, Kevin Barry sen. “Maybe other guys will be worried about us at these Olympics and this marks a big change-around for New Zealand boxing,” says Barry sen., father of the lightheavyweight fighter. “When I’ve taken teams overseas before, there’s a lot of talk of this guy or that guy being in their way. Michael and Kevin know they are up to this class and will do their best.” Barry, aged 24, and

Kenny, the 20-year-old Wellington heavyweight, have built up international experience at Oceania championships, last year’s World Cup in Rome, the Commonwealth championships, where both won titles, and two major international tournaments in Taiwan and Bangkok. Kenny, the youngest heavyweight to contest a World Cup, earned a standing ovation after his points loss to world champion Alexander Yagubkin of the Soviet Union. Barry, from Christchurch, also impressed with a similar result against another Russian world champion, Viktor Kacianowskij, in his division in Rome.

While Barry sen. says his son and Kenny will carry no inferiority complex into their Olympic bouts, they would prefer to get away from “the Yanks” and the Canadian heavyweight favourite Willie de Witt in the first round. The competition for the United States boxers to qualify for the Olympics is as tough as they will face in the games. The United States lightheavyweight, Evander Holyfield, for instance, had to beat world No. 1 ranked Ricky Womack in a selection box-off. The New Zealanders have taken advantage of the abundance of mean and hungry American boxers by

going to a gym in downtown Los Angeles for sparring with a professional lightheavyweight slugger called Disco Williams. So far each of the kiwis has had two three-round work-outs with Williams. “He’s got a big fight coming up next week and he’s giving our boys fantastic workouts, because he keeps coming forward and would lay them out if he had the chance,” said Barry sen. “It’s not like sparring as we know it — one or two sessions like that a week are enough.” Kenny and Barry are also sparring together and Barry sen. said “I could not be happier with the way the preparations have gone.”