Ray Beaulieu of the 2 Rivers Boxing Club is the new Emerald Gloves boxing champion in the 75-kg senior open division.
Dan and Thomas Mott also took part in the emerald Gloves tournament in Mission, but came home empty handed.
Beaulieu, 31, earned the Emerald Gloves with a unanimous decision in his three-round bout.
“He [Beaulieu] boxed beautiful,” coach of the 2 Rivers Boxing Club, Wally Doern said.
“We had a plan and it worked really well.”
That plan was, in part, developed the night before when Beaulieu and Doern watched Mike Poole, Beaulieu’s opponent, box another opponent during a qualifying bout Friday night.
Doern quickly realized Poole’s boxing style was especially vulnerable to body punches because he held his hands too high and too close together, blocking his view of punches coming from the side.
“All Ray had to do was keep the left jab coming to shut down his vision,” Doern explained.
From that, the plan was to deliver body punches to force Poole, from Victoria, to drop his hands and once that happened Beaulieu could then land head shots.
The plan worked like a charm.
“It couldn’t have worked better,” Doern said with a grin.
Beaulieu’s win marks the second Emerald Gloves win for the 2 Rivers Boxing Club in two years, as Matt O’Flynn earned the same honours last year.
Dan Mott, who normally boxes at the 75-kg novice division, wanted to box in the 68-kg division, going against Doern’s advice.
Unfortunately, the night before his bout, Mott was over by four kilograms.
To make the weight by weigh-in, Mott spent the evening in the sauna. Although he did weigh 68 kg at weigh-in, it was too much in too little time.
“He was too weak,” Doern said.
“It took too much out of him.”
Mott held his own in the first round, but his opponent was well prepared to defend against his right hand punch, his bread and butter punch.
“His [Mott’s opponent] style was well suited to defend against Dan’s style,” Doern said.
“He blocked Dan’s right hand every time.”
Add to that the rapid weight loss and Mott had nothing left in the tank come the second round and the referee stopped the bout after handing Mott a second eight count.