BY JACOB AJOM

Former national and Commonwealth Super lightweight champion Joe Lasisi has described the first Gotv Boxing Night as a welcome innovation that will bring out the best from boxers that will be featuring on the bill, slated for November 23 at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Lagos.

Isaac Ekpo (L) Super Middle Weight Boxing Champion with his Coach, Seidu Kalifa, in training at the National Stadium In Lagos recently.

A six bout bill which has been put together by Flykite Promotions will feature the national featherweight title fight between Dare “Fighting Machine” Oyewole against Waidi “Skoro” Usman as the main bout.

The supporting bouts include a light welterweight contest between Stanley “Edo Boy” Johnson and Saheed Olayiwola. In another non-title fight, Adewale Abbey will trade punches with Sunday Olalekan in the heavyweight class. There are bouts in the Light middleweight and featherweight classes also.

Chief Executive of Flykite Production, Jenkins Alumonu said at a pre-event press conference in Lagos yesterday that all the boxers featuring on the bill are insured to the tune of N2m each.

And this caught the fancy of the former boxing champion, Lasisi. Said he, “This is a good innovation as the boxers will be going into the ring with that confidence that anything that happens to them, in terms of injury will be taken care of. In our days it was not so. Once you are in the ring, you are on your own,” Lasisi said.

On its part, major sponsors of the event, Gotv will beam a live telecast of the fights to the rest of the world.

It was indeed a gathering of the old and the new faces of Nigerian boxing. Veterans such as Obisia Nwakpa, Hogan Jimoh, Ray Amao, Jerry Okorodudu among others were at the conference which took place at the newly constructed Old Skool conference centre at the Brai Ayonote Complex, National Stadium.