April 30th, 2007  Hard Place to Earn a Win  After the Variety Village show on Friday, Saturday the Atlas Boxing Team was off to Windsor again to take on a lineup of ALL hometown competition at the Brentwood Social Club hosted by the Fighting Island boxing club.  Our team consisted of young Robin “Redbelly” Hiedl and Julien Lafevre making their long-awaited returns to the ring after more than an year for both fighters, as well as, young Ariel Garneau, trained from the Dunfield club by Dan Caron who made the trip with us to be in her corner.  The hardest fight of the weekend for Robin was dropping from 154 lbs. on Monday of that week to 141 lbs. on Saturday before we left for the weigh-ins.  Congratulations to Robin for just keeping his mouth shut and working like a true boxer for a change!  That was the lesson he learned this weekend when he was matched up against Kevin Guenette, nephew of one of the organizers.  The fight was sloppy from the beginning as a poor, deflated Robin tried to stave off the wild rush of his opponent.  And Robin did well enough for the first round, a close round, but one that would have surely gone to the hometown favorite, as became the trend for the night.  Robin’s fight ended in the 2nd round amidst two quick 8-counts from the referee in ring Floyd Porter.  This was a trial of endurance and perseverance for young Robin who needed a good beating to put him back on track as potentially one of the best and brightest young boxers at our club.  In the 4th fight of the evening recently arrived Julien Lefevre, previously trained out of the KO King boxing club by Donnie Clarke Sr. and who continued his training here when his club moved to join ours.  Since then he has been one of our most consistent and dynamic young fighters, and hopefully will make big waves in the Junior Heavyweight category in Boxing Ontario.  Julien squared off against another young, promising heavyweight in Carmen DiPaulo of the hosting Fighting Island boxing club.  To his credit, Julien dominated the fight with explosive exchanges that his younger, yet more experienced, opponent wasn’t prepared to handle.  In the second round Carmen received an 8-count, almost going down before the referee jumped in.  But despite beating his opponent clearly for three rounds, at the end of the fight it wasn’t Julien’s arm that was raised in victory.  Instead Julien only had any satisfaction from his opponent approaching him to apologize for being declared the winner in a fight even he thought he had lost.  This travesty of hometown favoritism by the judges didn’t go unaddressed in this instance.  I promptly spoke with the officials, organizers and event regional director, Charlie Stewart, about the poor decision, with the purpose of changing Ariel’s fight into an exhibition due to the unfavorable judges.  As such, Ariel fought an exhibition much like Priscilla did, more actual fight than any exhibition.  Ariel took on hometown favorite Jessica McRae of the Windsor boxing club, who was just turning 16 yrs, but also entering into her 8th fight compared to Ariel’s three previous bouts.  To her credit, when Ariel was able to use her range she looked marvelous in dismantling her shorter opponent with long straight rights and several clear hooks that often followed if not as often scored.  While fighting on the inside Ariel was at a clear disadvantage, but proved to be a very tough fighter by usually weathering these flurries to counter attack with haymakers of her own.  Ariel, like Priscilla, got a chance to work for a whole three round fight after her disappointing finish at the Ray McGibbon’s Gloves.  Our female fighters are proving to be a group of highly determined ladies who are more consistent and diligent in their training and availability than pretty much all of our male fighters.  Congratulations to everyone this weekend on putting everything on the line and fighting despite disadvantages to earn the admiration of everyone!