HINTERLAND Boxing Club boxer Liam Pope is gearing up for his Australian Featherweight title bout on June 30 where he will face Olympian Nestor Bolum.
This will be Liam’s second attempt at a professional title, following his loss against Eric Sokolov on April 13 last year for the Australian Super Bantam title.
Pope’s coach, Steve Pitt, said although Bolum is an experienced opponent, including representing Nigeria at the 2004 Athens Olympics, he said Liam had what it takes to challenge him.
“Bolum’s a very classy boxer, I think that we will box with him the first couple of rounds to see how we can work him out a bit, and then we will continue to apply pressure to him,” he said.
“Anything he does to Liam, we will do three times back to him, keep applying the pressure and choke him out to hopefully get the stoppage.”
“Liam is really tough so it will take a lot to stop him.”
Despite Bolum’s experience, Steve said Liam has plenty of amateur experience of his own and many advantages over his opponent including age, height, reach and his boxing style.
“Liam debuted as an amateur in 2009 and boxed in the Australian Championships in 2009, 2012-2014 and 2017, as well two state championships, so he has a range of experience,” Steve said.
“He has also boxed internationally throughout his amateur career.”
Liam has been training hard to prepare for the title fight including strength conditioning, doing 12 round sessions, and building up his cardio and endurance.
The Beerwah boxer will also be moving up a weight class for this fight, from super bantam to featherweight, however his coach says he’s in the best weight class as a featherweight currently.
“Regionally and nationally featherweight is a good class division for him, although international featherweights are slightly bigger than he is, but he is still growing and developing,” he said.
“He’s not getting any older so he will either grow into the weight and if he doesn’t then we will move him back to super bantam weight.”
Three more of the boxing club’s professional boxers, including Dana ‘Deadly’ Coolwell, all have fight dates coming up in June, however the dates have not been officially announced yet.
