Ben Ruttan, Audrey Edmunds and Josh Greenwood made sure Inner City Boxing PG ended its first year back on the provincial scene with a bang.
The three Prince George pugilists were in Quesnel on Saturday night for the Rumble 33 fight card, hosted by 2 Rivers Boxing. Ruttan was a clear winner in his bout against Brody Beasley of Salmon Arm, Edmunds dominated her exhibition match against Quesnel’s Tamena Mott, and Greenwood showed tremendous heart in a furious comeback attempt against Devin Armstrong of Fort Nelson but fell short of victory.
As a club, Inner City was dormant for several years but was brought back to life in early 2024 by former star pupils Jag Seehra and Kenny Lally. With Seehra and Lally training a new generation of fighters at the same gym in which they honed their skills, the Inner City name is once again becoming well-known across Western Canada. In the past 10 months, members of the fight team have claimed titles at the B.C. Bronze Gloves in Chilliwack, the Alberta Sub-Novice Tournament in Calgary and the Champions of the North card last month in Prince George.
And the Rumble 33 results were another indicator of the rapid progress the revitalized Inner City club is making.
“It was a great night,” Seehra said. “Boxing is coming back in the north, for sure. We’re traveling, training hard, getting out there, and establishing that name.”
“We’re ending the year with 34 fights, which is really, really cool,” Lally added. “We were not expecting this whatsoever.”
At Rumble 33, the 17-year-old Ruttan was pretty much flawless against Beasley.
“Ben put on a clinic,” Lally said. “He was in a tough fight against a game fighter who was just as big, just as tall and just as muscular but he listened very well to Jag and I in the corner with a bit of a strategic plan and he lit the guy up for three rounds.
“Ben’s definitely a special fighter,” Lally added. “It’s the way he is in live action – how comfortable he is, the way that he’s thinking in there. You don’t see that very often with a guy who’s had three fights. He’s very tactical, and the angles that he’s throwing, he shouldn’t be throwing at his stage.”
Edmunds, meanwhile, appeared to be the underdog when she stepped into the ring against the much bigger Mott. But, in a battle of 12-year-olds with the same level of experience, Edmunds used her technical skills to her advantage and turned the fight into a one-sided affair.
“Audrey looked like she was just so much better,” Seehra said. “The skill, the movement, the battling, the punching accuracy and the listening – it was like a video game. Whatever we yelled, that’s what she did in the ring.”
Later in the night, Wally Doern, longtime head coach at the 2 Rivers club, presented Edmunds and Mott with special awards for being the two youngest fighters on the card.
“They both got trophies, which was really cool,” Lally said.
Greenwood, the third Inner City boxer in action on Saturday, had his hands full right away with Armstrong. The 17-year-old P.G. fighter struggled to find his punching range against the aggressive Armstrong and already had a bloody nose by the end of the first round. Greenwood had a better second round but still couldn’t do much to slow Armstrong down. Before the start of the third and final round, Seehra and Lally told Greenwood to hold nothing back, and he went out with a vengeance.
“He showed the true spirit of a Wardog,” Lally said. “He came out and won the third round as a mess. He didn’t give up. It was a learning experience. Devin is a good, good fighter. He’s two years older than Josh, and that was probably one of the bigger things. Anytime Josh would hit him, it wasn’t really affecting Devin. Devin was able to absorb his shots, and when Devin was hitting Josh, you could see it was affecting Josh, just from the strength difference.”
Members of the Inner City fight team will continue to train but won’t be back in the ring until the new year. The first event will be a big one – the B.C. Junior and Youth Provincial Championships, set for the third week in January in the Lower Mainland.