Old boxing administration needs to be moved on - they have antiquated views which damage their sport and at the end of the day promote ours - they heed to pick up their game or their sport will die a natural death.

Imagine this at one stage about three years ago when Fai Falamoe, Garth De Silva, and Regan Foley were all world ranked amateurs (i.e. top five) they were all coming down to Balmoral for boxing sparring -because their own sparring wasn't strong enough. Even young Santos Pakau came down

In addition - Chris Martin assists Jason Suttie and the boys at Etk, Lollo assists the Tongan Boxing team, Paula Matalele regularly spars the Kickboxing boys, NZ and Aussie kick boxers doing well in boxing include Daniel Tai, Jordon Tai, Chopper Chapman, Ray Sefo, Shane Wijohn, Fai Falamoe is now training kickboxing in Japan, John Conway, Jarhud, Todd Kedwell. Jason Suttie, Peter Graham is fighting over in Aussie and is top five in their heavyweights - not to mention, Alex Tui, Sam Soliman, Paul Briggs, JWP, Daniel Dawson, Mike Cope, Jason Delisle, etc etc etc

At Balmoral many of the boys are also quality boxers

The interesting thing with many of the NZ boys they are using boxing as a warm up for their kickboxing events - and still winning comfortably, this must be a worrying thing for the boxing administrators. At the end of the day if they worked together with they would experience better results for boxing but they fail to see the synergy - and as a result will continue to choke their sport until they either all die clutching on to the old days or they are deposed. What is the greatest pity is that most of the trainers and fighter don't really care they get on well and just want to enjoy the sport.

One of the few guys who has been a leader in this area has been Kevin Barry, when I started training people up at his gym years ago he really hated the thought of Kickboxing contaminating the gym - but after seeing a few of us in sparring with the likes of David (Ray Sefo), Dannie Codling, Robbie Peden, Masalino Masoe, Sam Leuii, Sean Sullivan, Angus Shelford (myself, eddie tongalahi, john conway, Shane Wijohn among others) I he could see the benefits of having the guys involved.

Say what you will about Kevin - he does what is right by his fighters - and at that time it was to get good quality sparring for his fighters, now his gym has a regular kickboxing trainer and even a couple of kick bags...it is interesting to note that Kevin is one of the few people who have made it sucessful in the boxing business - some will say that is own the back of David, I would say it is because he had the vision to recognise an opportunity and the open mind to try it, and unfortunately that is what lacks in most of the boxing administrators in NZ ... they are killing their sport, which is great for Us because we put on the best, most professionaly ruin shows with the best atheletes and well contested fights. Our fighter now go in to boxing gyms not with trediation at gettng a pummeling but looking forward to demonstrating our superior boxing skills over the so called specialists in the sports.