The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

OVER the past few decades, Ray Minus Jr has trained some of the top amateur Bahamian boxers who have gone on to excel at the national and international level, including Meacher ‘Pain’ Major and Jermaine ‘Choo Choo’ Mackey, and become household names in the professional ranks.

Today, Minus Jr’s stable at the Champion Boxing Club on Wulff Road is not as jam-packed as it was then, but he can still pride himself in producing some of the top amateur boxers in the country. One in particular is Lennox Boyce, the 2015 Boxer of the Year.

“We look at his consistency and his performance and clearly he has been more outstanding than any other boxer,” said Minus of Boyce, who won all six matches he competed in and performed exceptionally well in his five exhibition matches.

“Definitely, he was an overwhelming success in his matches. As a young boxer in the sport, this appears to be an ongoing thing because his talent is so amazing. The last boxing show that we did a week and a half ago in our first boxing show for the year, he did an exhibition against a boxer who came out of New York.

“The boxer was 23 years old and he was 15 pounds heavier than Lennox. But the boxer, who performed just like Floyd Mayweather, was surprised at his performance. Lennox was able to out-box him. That was a great experience for Lennox. He is just getting better and better.”

Minus said the future looks just as bright for Boyce, as it did for some of the prominent boxers he coached in the past like Major and Mackey. But Minus said Boyce has the capability to go even further because of his commitment and dedication to the sport.

Having been competing in the sport for the past three years, Boyce said he is pleased with the accomplishments that he has accomplished, but he not only owe it to Minus but his Heavenly Father as well.

“I put God first in everything that I do; I train hard and pray even harder,” he said. “I pray hard that with my focus in boxing, I will become even better than I was the last time I was in the ring. So I’m just glad that I was named the Boxer of the Year, but I want to improve that this year.”

Looking back at his performance last year, the Anatol Rodgers Secondary High 11th grader said he noticed that he was getting better and better and he attributed that to his tremendous work ethic.

“That Sunday after I would have fought on Saturday night, I am back in the gym training,” he said. “I just want to be able to get better than what I did in the ring on Saturday night. So every day I’m just getting better and better, all glory and thanks to God.”

For the 15-year-old Boyce, he has some lofty goals, one of which is to “become the greatest boxer ever,” not just in the Bahamas, but in the world.

“Every day I’m just training hard, whether I have an opponent or not,” he said. “In 2016, I just want to become better where I can face anybody that I meet in the world and I can just go out there and dominate them. That’s my goal. I want to become better so that I can fight anyone anywhere in the world.”

Eventually, Boyce said he would like to be able to represent the Bahamas at the Olympic Games and, if all goes well, he will be able to put a check mark in front of the line on his list of things to do.

“I just have to be ready for anything,” he insisted. “I just need to be ready for anything that comes up and bring home the gold.”

Minus Jr said he’s definitely going to be pushing Boyce to represent the Bahamas at the Olympics in 2020.

“We feel he’s well on track in being an Olympic medallist, so we are going to do our best to guide him along as best as we can and steer him in the right direction,” he said. “We hope that when the time come for him to represent our country and the Boxing Federation come into the picture, he will be well prepared.”