Georgetown University’s Club Boxing group held its annual Club Boxing Showcase on Healy Lawn on Oct. 19 for the first time in four years, a tradition that had previously been held on the Harbin Patio. 

Club Boxing began to prepare for the event this summer because it had to set up a sanction from its formal league, the United States Intercollegiate Boxing Association, as well as organize vendors, get an official doctor, pay for officials and make sure its boxers would be registered with the league. Because of miscalculations in the process for receiving university money, Club Boxing was given less than half of the budget that it was awarded last year, which it discovered in early October, according to Club Boxing President and senior Mackenzie Price. 

“I appealed to the board less than 2 weeks before our showcase to reevaluate our budget. They thankfully gave us back the funding we needed,” Price wrote in an email to The Hoya. She later mentioned that Interhall Council generously donated $500 to help with planning costs when the club had asked for $400. 

Ritmo y Sabor, a Latinx dance group on campus, the Midwest Club and the Georgetown Chimes also offered their services. The Chimes sang their rendition of the National Anthem, Ritmo performed for a halftime intermission and the Midwest Club cooked tres leches and empanadas for free. 

Georgetown University Student Association President and senior Norman Francis Jr. took up the role of emcee for the afternoon, sporting a Club Boxing sweatshirt and leading Georgetown students in chants throughout the bouts of the afternoon slate. 

The University of Maryland was initially supposed to participate but had to pull out the Monday before the event because of registration issues with the League. Club Boxing reached out to a local gym, Knowledge Boxing, which was willing to fill in.

The afternoon began with  sophomore Julia Sullivan’s first fight, facing off against Nicole Duan of Georgia Tech. It was a developmental bout, meaning that each round was one minute and no winner was announced. Sullivan, who has been training with Club Boxing since her freshman year, said of her match, satisfied with the fight as a whole.

“It was a lot of fun. When you’re boxing your adrenaline kind of goes crazy,” Sullivan said.

The second bout was between Georgia Tech’s Andres De Leon and Knowledge Boxing’s Antonio Brothers, and De Leon took the win for Georgia Tech by decision after the final bell. 

This match was followed by Vice President of Club Boxing Avery Rodriguez, who took a last minute spot up against Knowledge Boxing’s Martin Smith. 

The referee stopped the fight to protect Rodriguez before it could end in favor of Smith, but the Georgetown community rallied for Rodriguez with chants of “Hoya Saxa” and fellow club members shouting, “He’s so slick!” As always, Smith and Rodriguez hugged at the end of their bout.

After an intermission period, sophomore Rachel Thomas faced off against Trinity Fung of Michigan University. Thomas won the fight, and proceeded to have great pride in the hard work she put into the bout. 

“The fight was favorite thing I’ve done all year. I had a great opponent; we both worked our butts off,” Thomas said in an interview with The Hoya. 

This match was her first fight. Thomas proceeded to discuss her appreciation for the hard work which they put into boxing on a consistent basis.

The last fight of the afternoon was a fight between sophomore Marcux Dreux and Michigan University’s Jordan Newland. Dreux was one of the boxers who had taken part in intramural spars with other colleges last year, and his fight had quickly become a tight and tense match. His teammates and spectators were excited to see that intensity return for his first official fight, and it did. Dreux won his bout as well amongst three separate chants of “Hoya Saxa.”

Most of Georgetown’s boxers start off in their freshman year without any experience in boxing, according to Price. They have a coach who attends Monday spars during competition season, but otherwise Club Boxing relies on older, more experienced boxers teaching new boxers from scratch. The club has never applied to become an official Georgetown team, as the tryout process would potentially weed out or scare away the very people they want to introduce to boxing. The pedagogy and emphasis on the development of inexperienced boxers has also motivated this hesitation to apply for team status.

Price was proud of all the effort put into this event by her group.

“We are so proud of them and all of the work they put into this – the sprints, the extra training practices, the diets to make certain weights, and the courage to get up into the ring,” Price wrote.