The Smithy’s Gym boxing team made a successful debut on the weekend at the South East Queensland titles, with its two fighters medaling, bringing home one gold and one silver medal.

Braydon Smith retained his senior Bantam weight title in a thrilling fight against Blanco Wharton who was representing the country of Nauru.  Little was known about Wharton going into the fight apart from the fact he had recently suffered a four points loss to 2010 Australian champion and commonwealth games representative, Jason Maloney.

The fight started off even with Wharton coming out fast throwing combinations and Smith working to establish his position against the shorter more awkward southpaw with good jabs and body shots. At the end of the first round the scores were 6 – 5 to Braydon.

The second round saw a change in the fight as Smith proceeded to step up the pace cutting the ring off with good body shots and coming back up with heavy shots to the head. Much of the round was spent in the corner with Smith trapping his opponent and working away catching him with a good right hand which saw the referee step in putting a standing eight count on Wharton. The scores at the end of the second round were 20 – 10.

The third round started much the same as the previous one with Smith working to corner his opponent and hurt him with heavy body shots, bringing them back upstairs with painful hooks and right hands to the head. Wharton was visibly hurt and after wearing another left hook and straight right to the head suffered his second standing eight count. Smith came out looking for the stoppage trapping Wharton on the ropes and after another series of body shots and a big right hand to the head, the referee deemed Wharton was unable to continue and stopped the fight.

Brendon Smith – “It was a great win for his first fight back after spending two weeks in hospital at the beginning of the year with a tear in his oesophagus. I couldn’t be more proud of his efforts this week. He also finished two major exams to complete his first year of his law degree and to have that pressure in the week going into the titles and getting a win like this shows the professionalism of this young man.”