Ruahapia Boxing Club's Shirahn Lee Esmail was Hawke's Bay's sole title winner at the national championships which ended in Hastings on Saturday night.
Lee Esmail thrilled his army of supporters when he won the 60kg lightweight title, defeating 2017 bantamweight champion Rendz Remaneses of Canterbury by a 4-1 points decision. Lee Esmail was presented with one of the oldest national trophies at prize-giving, the Parisian Cup, which was first presented to the winner of the lightweight title in 1933.
Aucklander Jerome Pampellone re-stamped his credentials as the best performed New Zealand amateur boxer this season, when he retained his light heavyweight title and won the prestigious Jameson Belt, at the 114th edition of the nationals which ran for four days at the Hastings Sports Centre. Fresh off finishing in the top eight at the AIBA Men's World Championships in Russia, Pampellone, gave a master-class in boxing, defeating a game Trevor Swainson of Canterbury 5-0.
The third successive flyweight final between reigning champion Ryan Entese of Canterbury and Ivan Pavich of Waikato was another exciting contest that went right down to the wire again. Entese had won the last two title deciders by way of a paper-thin split majority, however, Pavich reversed those results with a 3-2 victory.
Wellington/Hutt Valley middleweight Ryan Scaife won his fourth successive national crown defeating Emile Richardson 5-0. Aucklanders Fineasi Tuipuloto and Dominic Roe, South Auckland's Nic Grantham and Canterbury's Uila Mau'u, will forever remember the Hastings nationals after winning their first senior championships titles.
