novice tournament
08/25/2026
I went to the novice tournament in London, Ontario on Friday, We did alright. My gym, Top Glove Boxing Academy, got 3 silver and 1 bronze medal. One of our guys probably got robbed of the gold medal, but I'll get to that later.
LONDON
London Ontario, Located in between Windsor and Toronto, a 6 hour drive from Sudbury. There's absolutely nothing special about the city. If you combined Barrie and Downtown Toronto, you get London. You know when you go to a new place you've never been before, and it feels different. A feeling you don't get in your hometown, I never experienced this in London. I went for a run with my teammates at night on Thursday, and for a while I thought I was in Toronto. On Saturday I went for a walk with my teammate Ethan, who was fighting that day, and it just felt like if Barrie merged with Toronto, and this is the result. It felt like I've been to London before, and yet I never have. While we were walking we spotted some anomalies. First off, the druggies are everywhere here. It was like Prime Sudbury (2023). Unlike Sudbury, where they are all located at the soup kitchen, the druggies in London are all spaced out. This old-looking lady was yelling out something like "He ain't got ma money" and started throwing shit. We also saw a couple on the opposite sides of the road arguing. The lady was saying "You're fucking this girl 20 times trying to get her pregnant, we're done!" or something like that, and the guy kept responding with "So we aren't going to lunch?" It's funny looking back at their argument. Anyways, there's nothing special about London, but those are some things I experienced while walking there.
NOVICE TOURNAMENT
The Novice Tournament is a 3-day boxing tournament hosted in London, Ontario in August annually. We originally registered 7 boxers for the tournament, but they weren't training, so only 2 went. Ethan and Aden. There was also a boxer from the Sault, whose coach couldn't come, so he registered under us. Him and Ethan were the first to fight on Friday. Ethan (at the end of registration), had seven boxers in his bracket, by Thursday (the day before the tournament), he had only three in his bracket. He was set to fight in the semifinal on Friday, but on the day of the fight, it suddenly got turned into a final. The guy from the Sault fought first, he won by unanimous decision against a dirty fighter who kept holding him. My coach Gord kept calling it out but the ref was blind. Ethan then fought, it was close but he lost by split decision. He got a point taken off of him in the second round for having his head down while ducking.
I got woken up by a phone call on Saturday from Gord. He told me to pass the phone to Ethan, he told him that he fought the wrong guy and has a chance to fight again in another final. He said he would, that's when I went on the walk with him. Aden and the Sault boxer also fought on Saturday. The guy from the Sault and Ethan fought in the morning session, while Aden fought in the evening session. The Sault boxer won his fight by unanimous decision pretty easily, and then Ethan was up next, again. The guy he fought was huge compared to Ethan, it was like David and Goliath. Ethan ended up having a worse performance than the previous fight, as the guy was aggressive and hit hard, and he lost by unanimous decision. Those two fights made him the first, and maybe only boxer ever, to win two silvers in the same tournament.
Aden was fighting in the evening session. There was also a boxer from Valley East (another club in Sudbury) who me and Aden both sparred, who was supposed to be fighting before Aden in a different ring. But in Aden's ring, there were 6 first round stoppages in a row, so he ended up fighting before him. He was going against a tall, lean opponent from Brampton. Aden lost by split decision, but I don't know how he lost. He was aggressive the entire fight, and landed more punches, the guy he fought didn't throw anything in the first round, and gassed out in the third. And any punches he threw, most of them didn't connect and the ones that did, Aden answered right back. Everybody was so confused when he lost. He doesn't seem disappointed about his loss, which is good.
Sunday was the final fight, The guy from the Sault would fight for the gold. The guy he fought was coming off of a stoppage win so we knew this was gonna be a good fight to watch. They also had open scoring in our ring, so my coach was able to see the scoring. It's not a revolutionary thing but it's the first time they had that at the tournament. The guy he fought was good, but the Sault guy was initiating and landing more punches, it was a close fight but he ended up losing by split decision. Watching the replays, I thought he should've won the fight, but looking at the judging at the tournament (Aden's fight and a few others I watched), that's boxing.
There were also a few times when boxers fought the wrong opponent, I watched a fight where this kid got stopped and I was thinking, he looks skinny compared to the other guy he's fighting (like me). Turns out he fought the wrong opponent. The kid was 13yrs old and 100lbs and fought a guy who's 120lb and 17yrs old. I don't know how that happened, it also happened with Ethan, but at least the guy was in his division.
In conclusion, Top Glove Boxing Academy got 3 Silver and 1 Bronze in the Novice Tournament. A good learning experience for the guys and I am glad I went down to support the team.
EPILOGUE
Sorry for not posting a blog in a week, I got caught up in boxing and building rantstuff.com, which is out now. There isn't any posts on it yet but I plan to advertise it somehow. I also built a blog editor for a1a, to make it easier to write blogs. I am also learning French, so that took a lot of my attention as well, for immersion, I plan to start writing blogs in French, they will be bad at the start, but as I learn the language the words will be easier to understand for me and the reader.