PUEBLO — USA Boxing hosted an international invitational tournament in Pueblo featuring world-class fighters from Germany, Puerto Rico, China, The Philippines, and Azerbaijan.
For many fighters, attending events like this is great for building their skills and competing on a high level. But for local Pueblonian Joseph Bobian, he's happy to have this happen in his hometown.
"We're just really privileged to have this in Pueblo, Colorado," he said. "I'll be here every day".
The invitational preliminary rounds started on Monday morning and will continue until the final matches on Thursday.
Matt Johnson is the High-Performance Director of USA Boxing. He says, "Really it's just another multi-nation tournament for our boxers to continue their development as we look forward to Olympic qualifications in 2023 and 2024".
While this tournament has no bearing on Olympic qualifications or standing, the coach says it's important to make sure American boxers are on-par with the competition.
"The rest of the world, they've got boxers that are competing on an every-other-month basis. And really we've got some good boxers on our team and in the program for years, we've got some young boxers, so this is a huge opportunity for them," Johnson said.
USA Boxing has been working to make this tournament happen for 6 months, and fighters have been at training camp for the last 6 weeks getting ready to step into the ring.
"It's always fun when you get time for the first bell to ring and they start boxing," says Johnson.
19-year-old Richard Fernandez is a boxer on Team USA. He will fight on Wednesday but was happy to watch every match Monday morning.
"It's a great opportunity to be out here representing my country, getting in all the hard work with teams and these coaches at top of the line work right here. I'm feeling strong," says Fernandez.
Jonny Mansour went up against Chinese boxer Mingke Fu today and won his round.
"It's an honor to wear this badge right here. It feels great, we're fighting for USA in USA, so we'll just keep representing," said Mansour.
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