Fighters go toe-to-toe in Karratha tournament

Bloody noses and swollen eyes were the consolation prize for the losing contestants in Karratha's biggest boxing night of the year last Saturday.

The winners from the nine contests walked away with just as much damage but all the glory and all the hardware.

Boxers from Brisbane, Perth, Wickham, Newman and Port Hedland flew and drove to Karratha Leisureplex for the Ark Group Boxing Tournament.

Karratha Raiders Boxing Club had a highly successful campaign on their home ground with four wins out of four fights, including the coveted 81kg elite class North West Light Heavyweight title between Irish ex-pat Toby Bermueller and Port Hedland's Adam Johnson.

Over the three rounds they jousted, Bermueller looked comfortable keeping Johnson at a distance with his long arms in a steady fight which saw a lot of clinching with plenty of body blows exchanged.

Despite some good hits, Johnson was never able to stamp his authority on the match as Bermueller took out the night's ultimate fight on points.

The prior fight had seen two out-of-towners go toe-to-toe as Perth's Sheldon Whalley took on Brisbane's Nathan Weber in a controlled display of both fighters' skills in the 69kg elite fight.

Some good combinations from Weber in the second round looked as though he might be making a comeback on the scorecard as both seemed to tire going into the last.

In the third and final round both boxers had saved some energy in the tank and were more intense than the opening minutes of the fight. Combinations were exchanged before Whalley locked it away with a brutal display at the end of the fight.

The only female match kicked the night off as Wickham's Peak 1 boxing club's Sukkwan Tang in her first-ever fight went up against Raiders' Rianne Ware, who has four bouts under her belt.

Ware started the evening off with a bang, coming straight out of the gates and laying some heavy shots onto Tang in the first round.

Midway into the fight Ware slowed down and Tang started looking better.

The Wickham boxer still had plenty left and almost looked as though she could take the fight with a technical knock-out. But Ware miraculously stayed on her feet for the final two rounds to what must have been a narrow win on points.

Raiders' Angus Rogers fought against Newman's Jessie Armstrong in a 70kg youth bout. Armstrong performed well at the Wickham outdoor boxing tournament earlier this year, while Rogers was fresh off his silver medal efforts at the National Golden Gloves in Brisbane.

Rogers was surprisingly faster then his experienced opponent and paced himself well in a great showing of maturity.

In the end Rogers took the fight on a split-second decision.

In the other youth fight, Jake Jackson flew up from Perth to compete in a 47kg schoolboy match with Raiders' Roberto Fernandez, who also recently won a silver finish in Brisbane.

Jackson was no slouch, weathering an onslaught, he boxed his way back into the fight, but couldn't get on top with the decision going to Fernandez. In the other matches Newman's Justin Willson won an exhibition against fellow Newman boxer Y-vain Agir.