News & Events

Main St Gym Goes to the National Silver Gloves. 

This year Main Street Gym entered six of its boxers in the 2024 State Silver Gloves  Tournament. The boxers were Beautiful Griffith, Lenox Horton, Terry Scott, Laelah Justice, Stiles Gaskins, and Princess  Brown. All won in their division.

Four of the six being Beautiful Griffith, Lenox Horton, Terry Scott and Stiles Gaskins, travel to the Regional Silver Gloves held in Macon GA on January 11-14, 2024. All of them pushed hard and fought like true competitors; however, only two will be advancing to the National  Silver Gloves Tournament in Independence, MO on February 1-3, 2024.  Laelah Justice will fight in the 145 lb weight division and Beautiful Griffith will fight in the 125 lb division. This will be Justice’s first appearance in a National Tournament, while Griffith will make  her 2nd run at a National Title. Last year Griffith lost a close decision in the Championship finals  and is hoping to avenge that loss.

While Olympic athletes are going for gold medals in South Korea, boxer from all over the USA have started their hunt for gold in the National Golden Gloves Tournament.

Thirty Cities around the country have started their preliminary bouts at the local level with Washington D.C.  being the hub for Maryland and Delaware. The tournament is being held at the Rosecroft Raceway in Fort Washington MD.

In the first week of elimination bouts, Main St Gym’s Markeese Hines won a solid victory over Brilyen Kelly of  Langdon. Hines combined solid body shots with slick defense that eventually caused the referee to give Kelly a standing 8 count.

Also winning from the Eastern Shore was Jerry Shockley fighting out of Down Under Boxing who won on points over Daniel Holmes from Old School Boxing in DC.

The preliminary bouts will continue at Rosecroft on Feb 24th, March 3rd, March 10th,March 24th, with the State Championships on April 7th.

Besides Hines who fights in the 152lb novice division, five other Main St. Gym Boxers are entered in this, the most popular amateur boxing tournament in the world.  In the Junior division is Erick Acosta fighting at 126 lbs. of Salisbury and Jordan Brown fighting at 132 lbs. of Delmar.

Three Main St boxers will compete in the Open Class Division, Cory Moore at 152 lbs., James McMurdo in the superheavyweight division (200lbs plus)  and Thomas Mottinger in the heavyweight (200lb max)division. Both Mottinger and McMurdo have won regional championships in the novice division in the past years.

All boxers will vie for State and Regional Championships with only the open class boxers eligible to compete for a National title to be held this year at the Ralston Arena in Omaha Nebraska.

Maryland DC Golden Gloves Championship

Rosecroft Raceway, Fort Washington...

         On Saturday evening April 7th, the best up and coming fighters from Maryland, Delaware and Washington D.C. converged on the Rosecroft Raceway for the finals of the 2018 Washington DC Golden Gloves Championships.  After five weeks of preliminary bouts, only the best of were left to face off for the title of Golden Gloves Champion. Although a large number of the boxing gyms entered are from Baltimore and D.C. , Salisbury was very well represented.  Of the ten novice weight classes, one of the spots was filled by, 152 lb Main St. boxer Markeese Hines. Of the ten open class weight divisions, Thomas Mottinger at 200lbs and James McMurdo representing 200 plus were out of Main St. Gym.

           Hines fought a very strategic bout utilizing a lot of the defensive movement he had been working on for the weeks leading up to the finals. “His movement was really slick and he looked in complete control, as he moved right or left at will. When he chose to close in for exchanges he did it clean and got out unscathed. We were pushing Markeese to increase the nuber of punches he was throwing, but it wasn’t enough to get the nod form the judges.” Said Coach Hal Chernoff.  Hines was pleased with his silver medal performance against Quinton Stephen out of Headbanger’s Gym in D.C. Upon finishing his first Golden Glove Tournament, Hines will go right back to work in the gym and prepare to move up into the open class division, now that he has exceeded the novice class limit of ten sanctioned bouts.

     Thomas  Mottinger, Main Street’s heavyweight entered the ring with a bit of a mental edge. He had faced his opponent Shaka Williams two times previously and won both times, one being in Salisbury.  Mottinger has been on a mission since the 2017 Golden Gloves where he dropped a very close decision in the Regional Golden Gloves. For him to avenge that loss he knew he had to win big in the D.C. finals.  Mottinger’s punching powers had Williams moving around the ring for most of the three-three minute rounds, but Mottinger was able to cut him off at will and land solid punches, giving him the unanimous win. Mottinger will now move on to the Regional Golden Gloves where he will meet the best heavyweight from the North Carolina/Virginia Championships.

     In the last bout of the evening, Prince St Elementary school teacher, James, “Matt” McMurdo or Mr. McMurdo as his students know him. Battled in a crowd-pleasing display of power and determination, but was unable to outpoint 6’6” Malik Titus fighting out of “Time To Grind Boxing” in Baltimore.  The six time Golden Glove Champion drew on his experience to deal with the fierce punching power and unrelenting pressure McMurdo kept on Titus through the entire fight. “ Matt worked very hard for this fight and this was his first open class appearance in a tournament. He fought one of the best in his class and we knew Malik’s experience was going to be a factor, so we just tried to stick to our game plan and  take him out of his rhythm as much as possible. Matt was successful at times but Malik’s experience let him make the right adjustments to get the win. Malik has a solid shot at winning it all at the national level.” Said Chernoff. “ We entered five fighters this year, and came away with two gold medals and three silver medals, that is something we are all very proud of. They represented Main St, and more importantly Salisbury in a big way.

Salisbury to Bermuda! 

May 6th was a big day for Main St Gym.  Four of its boxers traveled to Baltimore, MD to compete at the Mack Lewis Gym with Coach Hal Chernoff and Assistant Coach Ryan Watson.  While two other Boxers traveled to Bermuda with Main Street Gym’s Assistant Coach Tyrone Hargrove to compete against the Bermuda National Boxing Team.

           In Baltimore, Harlem Beteck, a student of Glen Ave Elementary School was victorious in his bout against Baltimore’s Jermaine Peterson.  Jakye Palmer of Bennett Middle School won his bout against Gary Brown of Baltimore.  Both Main Street Gym fighters ended Saturday night with a 2-0 record intact.  Main Street Gym’s Erick Acosta lost a close decision against Ayyub Harris of Philadelphia, PA.  Russell Griffith, also of Main Street Gym, lost a decision to Kevin Myers of Baltimore.  Both Boxers showed a lot of heart and skill in the ring. 

At the same time that the four Boxers were battling in Baltimore, two Main Street boxers were competing in Bermuda against the Bermuda National Team.        Markeese Hines of Main St Gym was matched against Mathew Tannock of Bermuda in the 152-pound weight division. Tannok came out strong in the first round causing Hines to receive two standing 8 counts.  Hines, however, was able to regroup and dominate in the second and third rounds using good head movement and landing clean scoring blows resulting in Hines victory over Tannock and receiving the gold medal in the 152 lb.  division.

Main Street Gym’s Corey Moore lost a very close bout against Bermuda’s top boxer, Andre Lambe in the 152-weigh division.   Lambe continued to hit Moore on the break with no warnings from the referee. Lambe did not appear to be scoring clean punches while Moore controlled the bout with sharp defense and quick jabs.  The judges, all from Bermuda, gave the bout to Lambe. An invitation has been extended for the Boxers to come back to Bermuda for its next International Tournament.