KEY POINTS:
New Zealand fighters were in golden touch at the Oceania amateur boxing championships in Samoa, winning six of the seven finals they contested last night.
Joe Blackbourn underlined his dominance of the welterweight division with a crushing 27-3 win over Samoan Hugo Fata in their final.
Blackbourn was a class above Fata and dominated from the opening bell.
Ezekai Maama was made to work much harder in the super heavyweight division before he finally subdued Australian Daniel Beahan 32-28 in a high scoring bout.
Facing a seven-point deficit at the start of the last round, Maama threw everything he had at Beahan and was duly rewarded by the judges.
The odd man out among the New Zealanders last night was Nathan McEwen, who lost his middleweight contest against Jarrod Fletcher, of Australia, after the referee stopped the contest in the third round.
By that stage Fletcher, the 2006 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, had proved his dominance by building a 20-point differential.
New Zealand women walked away with four gold medals.
Bantamweight Marehau Bentson began the procession when she easily got past Lynica Ufa, of Tahiti, 17-9.
The three other bouts featuring New Zealanders did not progress past the first round.
Featherweight Alexis Pritchard put two eight counts on Mary Wulf, of Samoa, before the bout was stopped by the referee.
Light welterweight Kelly Woolrich was in dynamic form against Samoa's Pisila Feauai and welterweight Dawn Chalmers also coasted to victory over Fulumann Matau, of American Samoa.
- NZPA
