Birmingham Boxing Column’s
First Anniversary
The seventh of June 2016 saw the birth of the Birmingham Boxing Column (bbcolumn.com) a website dedicated to reporting on boxing shows and boxers from around Birmingham and the Black Country. The brain child of myself Dexter Hastings it had been a dream of mine to build a website to promote Birmingham boxing at all levels weather It’s amateur, unlicensed or Pro, if It was boxing and positive the column would report on it.
I was telling my trainer Dean Martin about my vision for the website in March of 2016 and he encouraged me to go for it, Dean was the one who came up with the name Birmingham Boxing Column.
With that push and a catchy name I purchased the domain paid for the web builder and I was ready to go. I honestly didn’t know how it would be received and it was unlicensed lads and promotions that where the first to see it's potential. Fightden where one of the column's first sponsors and have helped the site no end letting me do my Interviews at the gym, their show was also the first one the column reviewed.
The Birmingham Boxing Column took off pretty quickly after that with the professionals seeing what a great platform the column was. The first Pro to appear on the column was Sean Davis who at the time was a unbeaten English champion, Sean has been on many times since and became a WBC International Bantamweight champion. The column has also reported on loads of pro and unlicensed shows over our first year, many thanks to Tommy Owens Promotions, Black Country Promotions and Mack the Knife Promotions for the press passes to the small hall pro show, the standard at all these shows has been very high. From the unlicensed Promotions we would would like to thank Fightden, Blood sweat and tears, a Triple G and showdown for letting the column review there shows.
It has been a great first year for the Column and I have met some inspirational people with the likes of pro trainers Jon Pegg and Paul Counihan from Eastside gym, Shaun Cogan from Smoking Joes to name just a few. Ever boxer I have interviewed has been a inspiration to me, but boxer that have caught my eye this year are Jordan Lynch and Cori Gibbs bbcolumn's boxers to watch Craig Cunningham who was the column's boxer of the year. Also there is Kal Yafai and his brother Gamel, Sam Eggington destined to be a world champ, Luke Walker, Kelcie Ball, Jamie Beech, Kyle Williams and Drew Brown to name just a few from the pros.
There are a few unlicensed boxers as well who has caught the eye Nico Ogbeide, Brandon Short and bbcolumn Challenge belt champ Brad Thomas, all these young boxers are good enough to turn pro and most likely will.
I am looking forward to another great year of boxing in Birmingham and will be looking to make the column bigger and better in 2017/18
First Welcome to Fightden