Hello Kickboxing & Fight Fans

At long last kickboxing has its own regular news column in a leading Sunday newspaper. Thanks to the foresight of the Sunday People, the column will have a weekly slot in the Ulster and Irish editions . The column will cover who's who in the sport along with all the latest news, gossip, events and tail of the tape on all the up-and-coming fighters within Kickboxing. If you have any news please email it to prokick@group.tm and now lets get straight into the action:-

New Champions

Congratulations to all the newly crowned WKN Irish Full-Contact Champions, who won the honors at the recent championship event in the Ulster hall. And a big thumps up to Kilkenny's John Paul Somes who went on to win the WKN European title just one week after his Irish Championship win. His Irish belt has now been relinquished and will be contended by Paul Day (Newtownards) and Galway's Edward Chiperi on the International bill scheduled for the National Basket ball Stadium in Dublin on November 16th. Incidentally if you want to see footage from the Ulster Hall event, tune in to Sky Sports on Wednesday 6th November and again on Wednesday 13th November at 9pm.

The new All Ireland champions are:
Featherweight Champion John Paul Somes (Kilkenny),
Lightweight Champion Wilson Snoddy (Carrickfergus),
Welterweight Champion Brian Boyd (Saintfield),
Light Middleweight Champion Vinny Di Ruscio (Kilkenny),
Middleweight Champion Ruairi Burke (Kilkenny),
Light Heavyweight Champion Nick Baird (Ballynahinch),
Super Heavyweight Champion James Gillen (Craigavon).

Also further congratulations to Wilson Snoddy who trains under highly respected coach Stuart Beattie. Wilson picked up a gold medal at a World Championships in Italy just a few weeks prior to claiming the prestigious WKN Irish crown.

Kickboxing on TV

Over the last twelve to fifteen months television has taken more of an interest in the sports development. UTV got the ball rolling with coverage on their UTV Live news programme, with the sports section covering almost every event in the North when ProKick fighters were at home and abroad and in the last six months TV3 have shown four one hour programmes from locally promoted International events with more to come and Sky Sports who have shown a keen interest for a few years have broadcast three one hour programmes with a further four hours confirmed before the end of 2002. On the international side of things kickboxing Mania V from the Waterfront hall screened in over twenty different countries across the world, a top American and Canadian TV network are showing interest in Kickboxing programmes produced in Ireland, more on this as it develops.

Local MC Gets Unexpected Call

A local MC got an unexpected call up for a major International event this week. Steven Weatherup who trains at the Prokick Gym in Belfast was spotted on Sky Sports on only his second ever show as MC which took place in the Park Avenue Hotel earlier this year. Promoters from Dubai who are promoting a major International event in the country today offered Steven an all expenses paid trip to the event. Unfortunately for Steven their offer came a little too late to book time off work for the trip which would have been for five days. The good news is they have him pencilled in for a future event.

Up coming events

Kilkenny promoter and former Middleweight World Champion Paul Cummins hosts an event next weekend in the Springhill Hotel Kilkenny. The Celts Vs The Vikings event will see an Irish select pit their skills against a Norwegian team with Cummins himself topping the bill against professional European title contender Daniel Nordas, who comes off an impressive win over former World Champion Jan Cree of Scotland. In other event news it's believed the opening event of 2003 could be a double World title header at the Ulster Hall as Belfast's Gary Hamilton and Downpatrick's Gary Noade look to achieve the Ultimate in the professional Lightweight and Pro/am Welterweight divisions. Both the men will be featuring at the National Basketball Arena event in Dublin on November 16th. Hamilton is due to defend his Intercontinental pro title against Spaniard Marc Anton whilst Noade will face Ugandan Joseph Mukasa. Mukasa is part of a eight man Ugandan team who will take on Irish fighters on the under card of Spain Vs Ireland. Tickets for this event are available from www.ticketmaster.ie or Tel. Dublin 0872 594553 and Belfast 028 9065 1074.

Well that's it for the first week of the People kickboxing news column,. Next week we'll take a look at what's happening on the International circuit. If you have any information on kickboxing or want to check out any further news on the sport check it out by logging on to www.prokick.com/people


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