During his boxing career, Kenny Lally went by the nickname King of the North.
Get ready for the return of the King.
On Saturday night in Salmon Arm, the 36-year-old Lally will duck under the ropes for his first fight in a decade. He’ll strap on his gloves for a dinner show and fundraising event called Hit2Fit, hosted by the Salmon Arm Bulldogs Fitness and Boxing Centre.
And he won’t be the only member of Inner City Boxing PG in the ring. Thirteen-year-old Audrey Edmunds will also fight at Hit2Fit.
“We’ll have the oldest and the youngest on the team,” said a chuckling Lally, in reference to the Inner City Wardogs fight team. “It’ll be a fun night.”
Lally’s last bout was at an Olympic-qualifying tournament in Argentina in 2016. Back then, he was a member of Inner City and Team Canada. Lally and long-time friend and training partner Jag Seehra got Inner City Boxing going again a little more than two years ago and have been coaching a new generation of fighters ever since.
Lally’s chance to step back into the ring for himself came when he found out from Hit2Fit organizer Jordyn Konrad that there was an opening on the card. One of the boxers – in training for six months – was in need of an opponent.
“Jordyn asked me if I knew anybody and, I don’t know, just the voice in my head said, ‘Why don’t you do it?’ So I said, ‘Yeah, I have a crazy idea. How about I step in the ring?’”
Lally has been staying in shape while working with Edmunds and the rest of the Inner City Wardogs, and now has a few training sessions under his belt as well. He won’t be going all-out against his Hit2Fit adversary, but he can’t wait to throw a few punches.
“I am so excited, honestly,” he said with a grin. “I am super excited.
“And like, it’s a black-tie event. The show is put together very well so at 3 p.m. there’s a live weigh-in so I’ll get to go on stage and weigh in with my shirt off. And then there’s walk-out songs, which is so cool. And so I told Jag, who’s going to be in my corner along with our good friend Tom White from Cranbrook, let’s play the part, let’s take it seriously. I want to show the athletes coming up how you should be. I’m not going to hurt the guy whatsoever but I’m going to make sure my hands are up, I’m going to be disciplined in there, show people what amateur boxing should look like.”
And then there’s Edmunds. She’ll be taking on Nelson’s Leilani Pineiro, daughter of current Team B.C. head coach Jesse Pineiro. Leilani Pineiro is 13, just like Edmunds, but there’s a slight weight difference between the two so the fight will be an exhibition.
Edmunds has been training with the new Inner City club from almost the beginning, but, because there are very few female fighters in her age group and weight class, she typically has a tough time finding matches. Her most recent bout was about five months ago in Calgary when she claimed an Alberta Sub-Novice championship title with a victory against Julia Ball of Edmonton. In that tournament, Edmunds was named best junior B female boxer.
Edmunds has done some high-calibre sparring lately, and given how hard she always works, Lally is thrilled that she’s on the Hit2Fit card.
“We’re hoping this is going to be a pretty good little scrap – it’s going to be fun,” Lally said.
“Audrey has the dedication of a true athlete. We saw right away that Audrey was different, and she keeps proving it each year. She’s really coming into her own, especially as a leader for the younger girls in the club. A lot of these junior girls in our program are looking up to Audrey, and you can see Audrey taking that role and it’s gaining her more confidence as well.”
Lally likes the fact that Edmunds is so coachable.
“As coaches, we nitpick certain things, and when we nitpick with Audrey, tell her to work on something, she corrects and she works on it for a couple weeks and you can see that she’s improving on it,” Lally said. “One of the main things was her balance, and in the way that we asked her to keep throwing her hands in combinations. She’s been working on that, and she’s been doing an amazing job with it.”