A Rutherglen boxing coach claims one of his fighters could be the biggest thing to hit Scottish boxing since two-time WBO featherweight champion Scott Harrison.
Teenager Shazman Parnez is one of four fighters from Durie’s Boxing Gym in Rutherglen who are taking part in a Test Match Open Sparring event at the Boxing Scotland High Performance Centre in Bridgeton on August 7 and 8, alongside Brandon Grant, Hassan Salim and Darren Bradley.
However, coach Archie Durie says Cambuslang 17-year-old Parnez is the real deal.
He said: “Shazman is a two-time British champion, he won the British title two years in a row and would have defended it for a third time, but Covid stopped him from doing that.
“He’s won the Scottish title four times, and he’s going to be the biggest thing in Scottish boxing since Scott Harrison – that’s my opinion.
“He’s going to be big, he’s going to be a special talent. He has been at Durie’s Boxing Gym since he was eight and he’s now 17 – he’s a good boy.”
Durie added: “I’m in training with all four of them just now, three times a week, to give them a wee edge for when this comes up.
“This is to get into the Scottish Pathway, and it’s for the boys to break through back into the Scotland team.
“All of them are really good but they need to prove themselves all over again, even Shazman.
“There is a result at the end of it, someone has their hand raised like in a fight. But this is the start of boxing getting back to normal, it’s the first competitive thing in nearly two years, so it’s a big thing for me and my boys.”
Durie says near-closures caused by positive Covid tests outside of the gym are leaving him with a lot of uncertainty.
He added: “It has been up and down, left, right and centre.
“I’ve opened back up, but in June there were a couple of times I nearly had to shut down because of isolation, a couple of my boys had caught Covid – not in the gym but outside.
“It’s murder, this is worse than lockdown – nobody can help us here financially, and it also puts people off taking up monthly memberships, if there are going to be isolations or temporary closures here or there.
“It’s pretty scary just now, and it’s pretty weird. There’s a massive Covid question mark all the time, but what can you do?”
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