From a humble beginning…
LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO START A GYM
I remember vividly driving around looking for a place to start my own Martial arts and boxing gym. It was, in fact, Monday, the 19th of October 1987. But, unfortunately, it was a week before Labour weekend. I have been looking for weeks but with no luck. Finally, it got to a point where I was just driving around aimlessly, hoping to see lease signs on shops or warehouses.
But somehow, I ended up in Dominion Road, Balmoral. I came across Telford Avenue and saw the Good Sheppard Catholic church at the end of the street. I used to go to mass there but haven’t been to church for ages. To be honest, I ran out of ideas because warehouses were too expensive, too far, too big a space or too small. So I decided to stop at the church for prayer. I asked God to help me find a place. When I came out of the church, I saw an old mate of mine. His name is John Merrick, the Balmoral Catholic church’s caretaker and mowing Father Ward’s lawn. Now let’s rewind the clock back to 7 years earlier from that point. I used to work with John during the early 80s at a tyre factory called Reid Rubber. They had a social running club. John and some members would run in the morning or during our 1-hour lunch break to prepare for marathons and other competitions against other running clubs. I would run along with them to prepare for my full-contact martial arts and kickboxing fights. (Let’s look forward to the present time).
John turned the lawn mower off and came over for a chat. He said, “Are you still doing your Bruce Lee stuff” (meaning if I’m still competing at kickboxing and other martial arts tournaments etc.). I said, “Yes, but I’m looking for a place to start a gym.” He said, “Come around the back with me. I want to show you something to see if you like it”. John took me around the back of one of the school’s classrooms. He opened the door, and the space was full of junk. It was a place that the parishioners used to store donated beds, furniture, home appliances, etc., to the church. They were old and rotten. John said that if I wanted to clean it up, he would talk to Father Ward (RIP) to let us use it. I took one quick look and said, “Yes, I’ll take it”. The first thing I did was contact my friend Tojo Dixon and ask if he could get us a truck. He borrowed the truck from work. To cut a long story short, it took us 3 trucks loaded with junk to the Waikaraka rubbish dump. It was a long and hard day, but we did it.
I remember vividly driving around looking for a place to start my own Martial arts and boxing gym. It was, in fact, Monday, the 19th of October 1987. But, unfortunately, it was a week before Labour weekend. I have been looking for weeks but with no luck. Finally, it got to a point where I was just driving around aimlessly, hoping to see lease signs on shops or warehouses.
But somehow, I ended up in Dominion Road, Balmoral. I came across Telford Avenue and saw the Good Sheppard Catholic church at the end of the street. I used to go to mass there but haven’t been to church for ages. To be honest, I ran out of ideas because warehouses were too expensive, too far, too big a space or too small. So I decided to stop at the church for prayer. I asked God to help me find a place. When I came out of the church, I saw an old mate of mine. His name is John Merrick, the Balmoral Catholic church’s caretaker and mowing Father Ward’s lawn. Now let’s rewind the clock back to 7 years earlier from that point. I used to work with John during the early 80s at a tyre factory called Reid Rubber. They had a social running club. John and some members would run in the morning or during our 1-hour lunch break to prepare for marathons and other competitions against other running clubs. I would run along with them to prepare for my full-contact martial arts and kickboxing fights. (Let’s look forward to the present time).
John turned the lawn mower off and came over for a chat. He said, “Are you still doing your Bruce Lee stuff” (meaning if I’m still competing at kickboxing and other martial arts tournaments etc.). I said, “Yes, but I’m looking for a place to start a gym.” He said, “Come around the back with me. I want to show you something to see if you like it”. John took me around the back of one of the school’s classrooms. He opened the door, and the space was full of junk. It was a place that the parishioners used to store donated beds, furniture, home appliances, etc., to the church. They were old and rotten. John said that if I wanted to clean it up, he would talk to Father Ward (RIP) to let us use it. I took one quick look and said, “Yes, I’ll take it”. The first thing I did was contact my friend Tojo Dixon and ask if he could get us a truck. He borrowed the truck from work. To cut a long story short, it took us 3 trucks loaded with junk to the Waikaraka rubbish dump. It was a long and hard day, but we did it.
GOD'S ANSWER
It was only about 95 square meters or a little less with 3 posts in the centre, but we were excited with our great find. Amazingly, once we finished and cleaned up all the junk, we noticed bolts and shackles attached to the wall on two of the posts. We noticed 3 sets on each corner and 3 sets of 2 on the wall. We now realised it was an old homemade boxing ring. All we have to do is put adjustable extensions and ropes around it, and the boxing ring is done. A couple of shackles bolted to the solid old wood ceiling for a couple of punching bags to be hung. Upon further investigation, we found out that it was, in fact, an old-school boxing gym. Before the 60s, boxing was one of the sports options amongst all the catholic schools. We also had 2 separate bathrooms and toilets for males and females. How cool was that? I truly believe that God led me there!
GIVING IT BACK TO GOD
My friends John and Noel Krause, Tojo Dixon, Gavin Toki, their families and relatives all helped. They cleaned, painted and polished the floors. Less than a week later, it was almost ready. I asked Father Ward to bless the gym as I intended to give it back to God.
CHEAP RENT & HUMBLE BEGINNING
The church had asked that we donate to them $240 a month for using the gym. But first, we needed training equipment and materials for installation for the gym to be used safely. We needed punching bags, pads, and ropes for the ring. We also needed a bathroom and plumbing gears, but we could only afford old donated gears from friends. I asked Sifu Phillip Lam for old broken gears from City Lee Gar, which was in New Lynn, to take and get repaired so we could use them. Most of our gear was second-hand, but we were thankful and appreciated every little donation given to us. When we had a little money, I would go to vinyl distributors and buy vinyl. I would take the vinyl to a sewing place or one of my aunts to sew and put the foam inside, which became our kicking pads. Most didn’t last very long, but it was put to good use while they lasted. Until we got there, we only had one pair of Thai pads.
We would all line up in front of Tojo, and he would hold the pads for every single person. This ritual went on for months which made us fit and also helped him lose over 30kgs. I would finish work at 3pm, and Tojo and I would go straight to the gym, and he would hold the pads for me for about an hour from Monday to Friday. The other guys would arrive at 6pm to do their marathon pads with Tojo. Soon Peter Flynn joined the gym and would hold the punching mitts for boxing. My brother Albert had a pair of red Boxing Mitts (Carmen brand), which Peter was using. We didn’t charge anyone for the training. To pay the rent, we did all sorts of fundraising using any ideas we could think of to raise money.
We collected empty beer bottles to take to the liquor stores or breweries for coins. We ran raffles – you name it, we did it. Tojo came up with the idea to sell tote tickets. We would sell the tickets for $2 per ticket. Back in those days, there was a newspaper called “8 O’clock” (because it came out at 8 o’clock pm on Saturdays), and it would report the weekly TAB tote numbers. If the ticket buyer’s number matches the last 3 numbers, he/she will be the lucky winner. We also had 2 small prize winners for being 1 number off both sides.
We would try and sell 100 tickets every week. We figured that after we paid the winners, we would make $60. I said to myself, $60 once a week, 4 times in a month - that’s $240. The rent is done and dusted. How could this possibly go wrong? I found out later that Tojo bought most of his own tickets most of the time. I know because I often did the same when I couldn’t sell them. We found it tough to try and sell the same tickets to the same people week in and week out. It got to the point that guys from work and my friends hid from us on Mondays, knowing we were going to sell them tickets. The only people who were happy to see us on Mondays were those who won prizes and were excited to come and collect their money.
So even when the rent was ridiculously low at $240 a month, you’d think everything would be sweet. Not quite. We were always behind on rent because we didn’t charge anyone to train, but somehow we managed to last at Balmoral for about 20 years! During this journey, I found out that I had a natural gift for reading games, technical breakdown, creating and setting up training systems and analysing old fight videos, but I had zero business IQ. We are forever thankful to the Balmoral Catholic church for their patience and kindness to us during all those years. BLG members were a family. The subs were more like koha’s (donations), just like the kindness that the church had shown towards us. Sometimes when members could afford to pay, they would. But most of the time, they didn’t. Most were already our friends or relatives, and new members also became friends.
THE HOME OF THE CHAMPIONS WAS BORN
We started to produce young champions. Dyason Kuresa, Filemu Ah San, Ray Sefo, Jayson Vemoa, Jason Suttie, Jacob Farani, Conway brothers (John & Joe), Ron Sefo, Aumatagi brothers (Clay & Auckland) and many, many more young champions at the gym followed. We would take a team to Hong Kong, China. We also take teams to Australia in different states, NSW, Victoria or Queensland, and we would match against the best local fighters in those states. We came out winners more often than not. If we didn't win, they were exciting fights. The fight between Jason Suttie and Ian Jacob was one to remember. We also brought overseas teams to Auckland from Australia, the US, Russia, the UK, Asia, and Canada to fight our guys for similar results. The Australian martial arts and kickboxing Magazine called us the "Home of champions".
SUCCESS BREEDS SUCCESS
In 1995, Ray Sefo became the first ever Kiwi to win a world title for New Zealand. He became an international superstar after beating big names from Australia, Holland, the US, Canada, UK, and Asia, as well as top fighters who fought at K-1 Japan. However, Jason Suttie first paved the way for Australasian fighters at the Japan K-1 circuit when he beat Dutch legend Ivan Hyppolitye at the K-1 event in 1996. Jason Vemoa, Ron Sefo and a few others followed suit and won world titles for BLG and New Zealand. Doug Viney won the NZ K-1 and became BLG's first-ever Olympian boxer. Ray invited him to the US, and Doug went on to win the USA K-1 Grandprix. There were many others, including Eugene Bareman, who came after.
Eugene and Doug Viney are co-owners of the current City Kickboxing gym. Doug and Eugene currently have fighters fighting out of their gym - Israel Adesanya, Dan Hooker, Brad Riddell, Kaikara France, Shane Young, Mike Blood Diamond and Carlos Ulberg. They are currently fighting in the UFC. There will definitely be many more to come from their gym.
On the other hand, Jason Suttie became New Zealand's most successful fight promoter with his "King in the ring" brand, which goes live worldwide. This was while he was training top fighters, including Michelle Preston, who became the first women's world kickboxing champion and won a boxing world title. Ray Sefo is the head striking coach for the famous Extreme Couture gym in Las Vegas. He is also the president of PFL (Professional Fighting League, who's only 3rd or 4th under the UFC). Sefo also broke another milestone by becoming the first Kiwi inducted into the USA MMA Hall of fame. Jayson Vemoa is working with the top fighters in Japan to fight at K-1 and other big promotions over there.
Away from Balmoral
In 2007, the church decided to use the building for youth programs for the church, so we had to move out of there. We moved from community halls to sharing gyms with others, but we never forget the kindness and love from my friends Bryce Landhorf and Chris Morris. They let us use the space at their building site - On Target Drilling company, as a temporary home for Balmoral Lee Gar. It came at the right time because I was coaching the Tongan Boxing team to prepare for the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games. They not only gave the space but also sponsored my young boxers, including Uanie Fa Jr (known as Junior Fa), who went on to win a bronze medal for Tonga. In fact, my Tongan team during that CWG beat NZ and Australia in the boxing medal stand. Our team won 2 medals -Junior Fa (Super Heavyweight) and Lomalito Moala (Lightweight). We had 4 fighters who made the quarter-finals. And we did all our camp at the garage of On Target Drilling. The On Target Company grew, and work became very busy, so we had to move out. My friend Mohsen Gharadaghi accommodated us until we found a suitable place to continue our children's programs. That came from John and Barbara Walters (Parents of music Super Stars Mutts and Niko) at City Boxing, Kingsland. They employed and looked after us and our fighters. They were the best family I have ever worked for.
Again we moved from gym to gym, but no real home for our loyal members and their family. They are like family to us and us to them, and they follow us where ever we go. We either affiliated with an existent gym or hired a place 3 or 4 nights a week. We hired ABA (Auckland Boxing Association). We charged our members $4 per person for adults (day pass) and $2 for juniors (day pass). We had 3 spots a week at ABA. They let us use it for sparring on Saturdays if there is no event. 100% of the money from the members would go into ABA. There were other reasons why we didn't open a gym since we left Balmoral. I was too busy working with international and high-profile fighters. Some guys have their own private or sponsored gym for us to use. I used to travel with them overseas for fights and camps.
I worked with Shane Cameron (once ranked number 10 in the world as a heavyweight) and Alexey Ignashov, "The Red Scorpion", who we used to travel to in Eastern Europe regularly. "The Jedi" Luke Jemeau, Matt "Viper" Vaile, Cairo George (boxing world title challenger), Sam Rapira (Boxing world title challenger), Dave Aloua (international Boxing champion), Monty Betham Jr (NZ Pro Boxing Champion) and of course The "Super Samoan" Mark Hunt and more. All these while working with the Tongan Boxing team. As an amateur Boxing coach, I had done Oceania games in 1999 (still at Balmoral), 2002, 2003, 2008, 2010, and 2012. Athens Olympic games 2004. Melbourne Commonwealth Games 2006, Delhi Commonwealth Games 2010, AIBA World championship Azerbaijan, Baku 2011. At that time, I felt that if I had to run my own gym and take care of the business side, it would have been too much for my family and me at the time.
Again we moved from gym to gym, but no real home for our loyal members and their family. They are like family to us and us to them, and they follow us where ever we go. We either affiliated with an existent gym or hired a place 3 or 4 nights a week. We hired ABA (Auckland Boxing Association). We charged our members $4 per person for adults (day pass) and $2 for juniors (day pass). We had 3 spots a week at ABA. They let us use it for sparring on Saturdays if there is no event. 100% of the money from the members would go into ABA. There were other reasons why we didn't open a gym since we left Balmoral. I was too busy working with international and high-profile fighters. Some guys have their own private or sponsored gym for us to use. I used to travel with them overseas for fights and camps.
I worked with Shane Cameron (once ranked number 10 in the world as a heavyweight) and Alexey Ignashov, "The Red Scorpion", who we used to travel to in Eastern Europe regularly. "The Jedi" Luke Jemeau, Matt "Viper" Vaile, Cairo George (boxing world title challenger), Sam Rapira (Boxing world title challenger), Dave Aloua (international Boxing champion), Monty Betham Jr (NZ Pro Boxing Champion) and of course The "Super Samoan" Mark Hunt and more. All these while working with the Tongan Boxing team. As an amateur Boxing coach, I had done Oceania games in 1999 (still at Balmoral), 2002, 2003, 2008, 2010, and 2012. Athens Olympic games 2004. Melbourne Commonwealth Games 2006, Delhi Commonwealth Games 2010, AIBA World championship Azerbaijan, Baku 2011. At that time, I felt that if I had to run my own gym and take care of the business side, it would have been too much for my family and me at the time.
Back Full Circle to Balmoral
In May 2021, we opened a new home for our friends and members. 2/335 Sandringham Road, Sandringham, Auckland, New Zealand. Corner of Sandringham Road and St. Lukes Road (St. Lukes is the same road as Balmoral Road). So the gym is back home in Balmoral.
There are many people to thank but first and foremost, God. My coach Sifu Phillip Lam for believing in me. He took me in as a young 18-year-old and treated me like his own son. Big thanks to my wife, Leinata and our boys, Lolo jr and Rodney. The same goes for my loyal friends, the Maliefulus (Mika, his wife Ula and kids) and the Batucans (Oscar, Tania and kids). These guys followed me from the old gym at Balmoral when some of their children weren't even born. My friend Mohsen Gharadaghi let us use his beautiful Motown gym until we found a place for our kids at City Boxing. Yes, we are still training fighters because we are good at it. People always asked us to open a new gym, and the timing was right, so here we are! But my biggest passion is teaching kids. Watching them grow and develop technically and confidently to become well-balanced and healthy young men and women are truly a blessing.
There are many people to thank but first and foremost, God. My coach Sifu Phillip Lam for believing in me. He took me in as a young 18-year-old and treated me like his own son. Big thanks to my wife, Leinata and our boys, Lolo jr and Rodney. The same goes for my loyal friends, the Maliefulus (Mika, his wife Ula and kids) and the Batucans (Oscar, Tania and kids). These guys followed me from the old gym at Balmoral when some of their children weren't even born. My friend Mohsen Gharadaghi let us use his beautiful Motown gym until we found a place for our kids at City Boxing. Yes, we are still training fighters because we are good at it. People always asked us to open a new gym, and the timing was right, so here we are! But my biggest passion is teaching kids. Watching them grow and develop technically and confidently to become well-balanced and healthy young men and women are truly a blessing.