Mick Green,Richie Kiely,Rebecca Dillon,Martin Kenny
Well the Black panthers had another good performance taking four All Ireland national AKAI full contact titles The all Ireland championships were held over two days Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th of February
With contestants from all over Ireland converging on the Dublin venue Crumlin boxing club this was the 3rdtime to be held their. This was the first time for the new computers scoring system to be used in full contact kickboxing in Ireland To great satisfaction to the to the audience and fighters which will take kickboxing closer to getting into the Olympics. We had four kick boxers one junior age 15 Michael Green in -91kg who had a walk over to take the title for the first time and who was champion previous at the age of 11 when he took a title in Galway. The first of Blackpanthers up was the highly rated Rebecca Dillon in the -52kg weight division final against Jolene Reilly from Thurles kickboxing Rebecca was up for this and went out with a clear intent to take the title home to our club but Jolene made a good counter with a roundhouse kick and seemed to be well prepared for the contest. Rebecca stepped it up a gear and caught her with a powerful right hand left hook to give her a standing eight count then the bell went to end round one. In the second round Jolene came and rushed Rebecca but this did not faze her as she issued another powerful front kick and the referee step in to count Jolene out for a clear stoppage and win to Rebecca this the third time for her to retain an AKAI all Ireland title and will get to keep the belt.
Next we had Martin Kenny who has been out of competition for 9 months and his first contest against Michael Whelan of Sligo Mugendo kickboxing in the 57kg division Final this fighter was a head in the first round but martin came out a different fighter in the second round and kept his distance which worked better for him with martin coming to the end of the second round with two 2 judges to 1 giving martin a clear points lead. With everything left to the third round this was one of the best fights of the competition martin experience showed through and was a clear winner with a 3:0 win his first time to win a AKAI Iris title. Next we had Richard kiely out in the -86kg division in his first fight of the day he was up against Pairic O Connor of Galway kickboxing which was a real test of the champion he came to fight and try to win but kiely had his mind set to retain his title for the third time and he won on a clear points win to bring him to the final were he met for the third time Alan Coffey on the previous championships last year coffey caught kiey with a punch to give him a standing count but for kielys training he pull through to win. This year Coffey was out to reapply the same intent but Kielys timing and experience from winning a bronze medal in November at the WAKO euro championships in Greece brought him a clear win and he retained his title for third time to the the delight of the black panther team. This means that the club will have four champions representing their country Ireland in the first WAKO world Championships to be held in Ireland in November in the City west Hotel which is a great achievement for the club.