By Alexander Zammit

Yesterday night Malta’s number one Kickboxing champion Daniel “The Jet” Zahra, made history with a smooth transition from the amateur into the professional ranks and captured the WKN – European Light middle-weight title in the process, when he defeated in a convincing manner Jose “Bogas” De Oliveira, of Portugal , at the MFCC Conference Centre at Ta Qali, in Malta.

The event organizers, Noel Mercieca and Isaac Chetcuti of ‘Gladiators Promotions’ surpassed themselves, with a fantastic  show which kept the huge crowd entertained from start to finish. The show it-self consisted of the main event and ten supporting bouts, showcasing kickboxing, K1 and classical boxing.

The main event of the evening had the crowd roaring their support for the popular Maltese fighter. Zahra, fighting out of the red corner who looked confident and wasted no time in taking the fight to his Portuguese opponent De Oliveira. By round two the superiority of Zahra was evident and De Oliveira often had a surprised look on his face as Zahra displayed combinations of kicks and punches which often found there mark. To his merit De Oliveira remained calm and was never flustered even after Zahra drew blood in the third round. De Oliveira had his moments but Zahra never allowed him to settle in. The Portuguese fighter showing true sporting spirit lifted Zahra’s hand in victory even before the judges had issued their majority decision. A well deserved victory for Daniel “The Jet” Zahra.

The last supporting bout for this memorable event was a K1 bout between Enwan Maillot of Malta THAI BOXING Club and Renald Tabone of the Red Dragon Kickboxing Club. Both fighters were aggressive but Tabone took victory in a workman like fashion building a large points advantage over his opponent.  

The bout before that was an exciting  4x2 minutes traditional boxing match between Tyronne 'EL TERRIBLE' Borg of the Wu Shu Ky Kickboxing Club and Chris Debono of Ying Yang Kickboxing Club. The bout was crowd pleasing and what the boxers lacked in ring craft they made up for it with a courageous display of fearless boxing with both fighters exchanging and raining punches, relentlessly on each other. The judges awarded a narrow point’s victory to Tyronne Borg.

The other supporting bouts consisted of a number of Kickboxing matches of various levels and all the participants acquitted themselves with good performances. Most notable of these bouts was that of Isaac Chetcuti (Ying Yang) vs. Chris Lagana (Strike Kickboxing) which ended in a doctor’s stoppage in round three, with victory going to Chetcuti who was ahead on all the score cards at the time of the stoppage.

The only KO of the evening came about in the seventh bout between Tyronne Muscat of the Wu Shu Ky Kickboxing Club and Jonathan Psaila of the Ying Yang Kickboxing Club. The first round was balanced with both fighters testing each other out. In round two Psaila seemed to be getting the edge over his opponent when Muscat found an opening and floored Psaila with a beautifully executed right to the chin. As Psaila rolled over and struggled to get to his feet, Coach & Corner-man Noel Mercieca threw in the towel to save his fighter from further punishment.

A truly enjoyable fight night and as has been the trend for the last few years the Ying Yang Kickboxing club was the dominant force, however the improvement of fighters from other local clubs was evident and the gap is closing fast.