Canada Day at the 2007 Nickel City Challenge The 3rd annual Nickel City Challenge invitational boxing tournament fell on the Canada Day long weekend this year and our club was invited out for the third time to compete.  Jonathan Bochner got a bye into the finals to face the New York State Golden Gloves champion and Ron Makovoz was invited to fight in the junior portion, but a non-championship fight as they didn’t have a junior category and were just trying it out this year.  Also with us on this trip was Mohammed Abedeen of the Kombat Arts boxing club, who’s coach, Raphael Delgado, asked us to take him down and take care of him for his fight, also a bye into the finals.  So with two potential champions ready to destroy the American competition and Ron on his first trip to fight a US boxer, my father and I left for Buffalo , NY on Saturday, June 30th. All of our fighters were scheduled to fight back-to-back one after the other right in the middle of the card, but with a little deft talking we were able to get an intermission put in just before Jonathan fought.  Ron was the first one up, fighting Hajij El Shabaz of the hosting Buffalo boxing club, who had fought the day before and struggled with his weight, coming in nearly 10 lbs. heavier than Ron.  Unfortunately for Shabaz Ron relies more on his speed than power right now and we knew that the best strategy for Ron would be to box and make his opponent miss.  And for three rounds, Ron did exactly that, he let the heavier kid throw away all his energy swinging away with haymakers and dashed in with punishing combinations in the aftermath.  After three rounds of a dominating display of boxing Ron walked away with a unanimous victory to break the ice against American competition.  Congratulations! Just before the intermission Mo Abedeen fought a fighter who was ranked 6th in the US from New York city .  The first round Mo didn’t know what to expect from the stocky southpaw, but knew that the guy was throwing hard punches.  The second round Mo went out and boxed and was able to keep his opponent off of him and take advantage when the guy missed his tight power punches.  The third round the American came on strong and smothered Mo and forced him to fight face to face more than box, but Mo was never in trouble.  And that showed in the fourth round where Mo made a last ditch effort to take over the fight, landing on three occasions with haymakers of his own that rocked his opponent.  But at the end of the fight the American was given the victory by a rather questionable unanimous decision. After the intermission Jonathan squared off against Ashante Henderson also from New York city , the 2007 New York State Golden Gloves champion in the 69 Kg division, a finals match of the Nickel City Challenge.  Ashante started off poorly against Jonathan, not moving or punching very much, just trying to dodge out of the way and throw bombs that seemed always too late to reach Jonathan.  The second and third rounds Ashante tried his best to box and exchange with Jonathan, not the usual flashy type of American boxer, he was just a little slower than our guy and couldn’t mount much of an offense.  By the fourth and last round Jonathan was having his way with Ashante, beating him with numerous punches from all the angles, making his poor opponent look like a bobble head doll just standing in the middle of the ring taking punishment.  Needless to say, Jonathan won a unanimous decision victory, and is once again the Nickel City champion.  Congratulations!