Boxing back at the Knights

The Knights of Columbus was host once again to action in the squared circle, as TNT Boxing Promotions held its latest show on May 17, with two local boxers on the card.

Joey Two Rivers, the co-promoter for TNT Boxing with Peter Thomas, said the event was a near-sellout, with almost 400 people in attendance.

Slade Two Rivers, Joey’s nephew, was one of those two local fighters on the card. Despite having to go up a weight class to face off against his opponent Jessy Landry, Slade had little trouble taking down his opponent with a first-round knockout.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” said Joey, because Slade had previously either stayed at 138 lbs. or gone down a weight class.

Slade himself did not expect what happened against Landry.

“I didn’t expect another knockout. I thought it was going to be a longer fight, since (Landry) is a bigger guy, up a weight class, and he had a lot of experience,” said Slade.

He explained that at the start of the fight, he noticed a tendency from Landry he could exploit.

“When I did my jab, I noticed he was keeping a high guard, and he’d sort of put his head down,” said Slade. “So I would blitz him, and I would do a long combo, and he would just shell up. That led to the KO two times.”

The win against Landry was his eighth in a row.

“I feel like I made a statement going up a weight class and having a dominant performance,” said Slade.

He said he works on something different between each fight, feeling himself getting better and better.

“Each fight, I try to work on a lot of technical things like positioning and movements. I think I’m improving a lot every fight,” said Slade.

The other local boxer on the card was Lucas Goodleaf, who had his first ever exhibition fight.

“Lucas’s first fight was supposed to be a regular fight, but we just went with an exhibition because his trainer didn’t think he was quite ready yet,” said Joey.

He explained that theoretically, in an exhibition, boxers are supposed to not go all out.

That’s not what happened in Goodleaf’s fight against Antoine Laforce, which was stopped by the referee.

“I didn’t want it to be back and forth at all. I didn’t want to get my face hit, and I didn’t really necessarily want to hit him. I just wanted it to be one good punch that would hopefully sit him down and end the fight,” said Goodleaf.

But, it was not going that way, as Laforce showed resilience and the fight soon became a slugfest.

“As they say, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face,” said Goodleaf.

His trainer said a TKO was still on the table for Goodleaf, and the first fall was relatively clean. The second, he explained, was more of a push than a punch, and the fight ended after that.

Despite the exhibition nature of the fight, and the stoppage, Goodleaf was happy to do well in front of his friends and family, and to have been able to step back into the ring after a long preparation to get to this point.

Goodleaf started getting into boxing around the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and after a lot of training, his first scheduled fight was cancelled.

After a few years of doing motocross in California, he felt the drive to get back in the ring and finally get that first fight.

After some worry the rug would be pulled from under him once again, he finally did have his fight - and he’s already looking forward to the next one.

Another Kahnawa’kehró:non, Kale King, was scheduled to box on May 17, but was forced to pull out due to illness.

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