HE MIGHTN’T be the biggest fighter on the block, but Alex Brock packs a big punch.
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The 16-year-old Warrnambool teenager stumbled across boxing when a friend recommended the sport last year, and overcame the odds to pay tribute to his late father when he saluted at the Bridgewater Boxing Club tournament last weekend.
Brock, who is trained by Warrnambool boxing stalwart Rodney Ryan, defeated Jordan Sands in the junior 64kg competition in his first fight across the Bass Strait.
Mentor Rodney Ryan said while Brock was emotional after the fight, he had dedicated it to his father who passed away last month.
“I think I said to him in my last speech between the fights that his dad will be watching and now was the time to go out and make him proud,” he said.
Brock said boxing helped him manage things away from the sport, as it cleared his head when he was inside the ring. He said he was pleased to come out on top.
“I got smashed in the first round, but managed to come back in the second and third round,” he told The Standard.
“I just went a bit harder in the second and third rounds, which paid off.
Brock said his training regimen steadily increased in the lead up to the fight and culminated in training with Ryan twice a week.
“I’d get up at 5.30am, get here by six, and then I would come back and train yet again after school,” he said.
“It’s all for just six minutes in the ring.”
Brock, who was the only male fighter from Warrnambool to take part in the trip, was joined by 14-year-old Brauer College student Amy Gibbs and Dakotah Keane – who also triumphed in their bouts.
Gibbs, who locked horns with Tasmanian Shayla Holland in the junior female 62kg division, said her clash was one of the toughest she’d experienced.
“In the first round its the hardest, because you don’t know what it’s going to be like or what the fighter is going to do.
“In the second round you see how they move and what they do which makes it a little easier to gauge. It gets easier because you can also see what they throw at you.”
She said most of her build-up to the bout centered around ensuring she was as fit as possible and ready to take on the opponent, as the nature of the sport made it difficult to put a plan into place.
Fellow female fighter Keane held off another Tasmanian boxer in Kylie Hanslow to salute in the schoolgirl 49kg division, while Bella Rantall couldn’t get over the line in her junior female 57kg category.
Ryan said Rantall was “the standout fighter of the tournament” despite her loss to a Tasmanian opponent.