FISTS will be flying tomorrow night at Malvern Town Hall in the annual Bob Rose Cup, which will aid the Spinal Cord Society.
Several Collingwood players are expected to attend the fight night, which honours the late Rose, who is regarded as the club’s greatest player.
A talented boxer as well as a champion footballer, Rose fought at the old West Melbourne Stadium.
His late son Robert, who also played for the Magpies and Footscray, was a talented Victorian cricketer who many thought would play for Australia but was left a quadriplegic after a car crash in 1974.
Boxing promoter Peter Maniatis had decided to make a donation, from the proceeds of the fight night, before Collingwood forward Blake Caracella suffered a serious neck injury at the MCG in Round 10.
“It just raised the public awareness of neck and spinal injuries,’ Maniatis said yesterday.
“Sport is a great way to get a message across as we need to raise money to find cures and provide treatment to get people out of wheelchairs so they can lead a full life.”
Maniatis, voted national boxing promoter of 2005 and who also received the WBF international award for outstanding services to boxing, said he was looking forward to tomorrow’s bout between and Eddie “Psycho” Delic and Samuel Coloban, a Cameroon fighter who stayed in Australia after the Commonwealth Games.
The pair will fight over 10, three-minute rounds as welterweights, the same weight at which Rose fought.
Johnny “Two Gunz” Walker and Sean Connell have been matched in the main bout for the WBF Asia Pacific super middleweight title, also over 10 rounds.
There are also preliminary bouts. Doors open at 6.30pm and the first punches will be thrown at 8pm.
Daryl Timms
