Bell City Boxing Club, in partnership with Wisdom Promotions, will be putting on a professional Boxing Championship called When Lightning Strikes at the Brantford and District Civic Centre on Saturday, May 6, 2023.
For the first time in Brantford history, two boxing titles will be up for grabs. The event will have seven big fights throughout the night and will feature three Brantford boxers by the names of Jennifer Williams (Brantford’s first female professional boxer), Darren Fletcher and John Mercante.
Bradley Wilcox will face off against Larone Whyte for the main ten-round event as they fight for the International Boxing Council (IBC) Welterweight title. For the co-main event, Paul Ispas will face off against Marko Szalai for the Canadian Professional Boxing Council (CPBC) Eastern Canadian Welterweight title.
Attendees can buy tickets now and will have varying seating options to purchase for the event. General admission will be seated in the stands and have access to a bar, while there is also a limited 76 tables on the floor with choices of a ringside table, gold table, silver and bronze tables that have access to two bars.
For attendees, doors will open at 6:00 p.m. and the first bell will ring at 7:00 p.m.
Bill Williams, owner of the Bell City Boxing Club, has owned several different boxing clubs within Brantford over the past 40 years and started Bell City Boxing around 2017.
“We’re an amateur boxing club and we’re a not-for-profit boxing club,” he said. “We work with the youth, adults, competitors, non competitors. We even have a Parkinson’s class that we do three times a week for people with Parkinson’s.”
Williams noted Brantford’s history with boxing and the Summerhays brothers, and he looks forward to having a two-title boxing championship to add to the history.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
