Summer Success Continues in Mississauga This past Sunday Kombat Arts held a boxing event, the one and only amateur boxing event that our club would be attending in the month of July, and our fighters were ready to win.  The only two boxers of ours they were able to match were Mark Colucci and Christian Arambulo.  Also, I would like to make mention of Laura Miller, who we had hoped would be matched to fight in this event and was put to the test to drop down to 140 lbs., she was at that weight 2 days before the event and ready to fight.  Congratulations to her for training hard, unfortunately she will have to wait a little while longer before she gets to test herself in a fight at that weight.  Early that afternoon DJ and myself met up with Mark and Christian at the gym in the middle of the street festival, Salsa on the Street, and departed for the Kombat Arts boxing club in Mississauga .  We arrived right on time for weigh-ins, Christian who had to drop 8 lbs. in the last 6 days himself made it down to 151 lbs., and Mark had no problems as he was fighting a heavier opponent.  Accordingly, we left to grab a bite to eat and then encountered no problems at the medicals, with our familiar doctor, Dr. Flores, who also is our chief ring side doctor.  The fights began just after 5pm after some confusion and rearranging in the fight order we started Christian in his warm up as he would be the third fight up and Mark would have to wait till the 9th fight of the evening. The fights started off with younger fighters and the time flew by as we warmed Christian up and gave him his instructions.  Christian was fighting a somewhat lighter opponent in Jefferson Alvarez of the hosting Kombat Arts boxing club, on his home turf, but Christian was focused and ready to get his first win.  Christian was significantly taller than Alvarez and used his range to keep away from the haymakers thrown at him.  The first round saw Christian dodging out of the way of big punches and then trying to get back in to score some points with his straight punches.  The second round saw more of the same, but Christian started to pump out his double jab that started landing consistently and he was able to set up a few more right hands.  To the credit of his opponent, the haymakers only came more often as the rounds went on, but that only gave Christian more chances to capitalize on the mistakes.  In the end, the fight was a close one, a split decision, with the edge going to Christian as he scored his first victory.  Congratulations Christian! Not long after a short intermission Mark squared off against Don Pereault of the Sully’s boxing club who had 9 fights compared to Mark’s 12, not to mention Mark being on a winning streak.  Pereault was known to our fighters as they had encountered him at tournaments previously and were well informed about his power punching ability.  As expected, Pereault started off the fight waiting for Mark to come in and then throwing haymakers, only to be met with the incessant punching of Mark.  The battle was a more cautious one for Mark who didn’t start faking his opponent till the very last round of the 3 round contest, so Mark wasn’t clearly winning through the first two rounds.  But in the third round it seemed everything came together for Mark and fell apart for Pereault.  Mark was able to very clearly win the last round and his aggressiveness in comparison to Pereault’s the first couple of rounds was able to win Mark a split decision victory to extend his winning streak to three in a row now as an open class fighter.  Although Mark was upset with himself for not faking earlier he learned a valuable new skill under fire and he deserves credit for adapting to his opponent and pulling out the victory.  The Mantis gets another one!  Congratulations! This was a much better showing for our Atlas fighters at a Kombat Arts boxing event after not having performed so well at the previous one.  Congratulations to our hard-working fighters and coaches who have contributed to a very successful summer!