A young Mission boxer was crowned the WBC Western Canadian Welterweight champion on May 31 in Kelowna.
Brennan Paterson, 17, earned the title at the WBC Canada Boxing Championships, where he competed against fighters from B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Paterson won a hotly contested four-round battle that was “a high-speed, chess-like battle of style, grit, and determination,” said his coach Nick Csaszar, a former full-contact martial artist and kickboxer.
Paterson is a member of the Atlas Boxing Club in Mission and has been training at the small gym for three years.
“This young man has the stuff we should all aspire to,” said Csaszar. “He’s got what legendary trainer Gus D’Amato called the three Ds : desire, dedication, and discipline. And to top it all off he’s an incredibly humble and decent human being. It’s inspiring to find such qualities so deeply entrenched in any fighter, particularly a young man of only 17.”
Paterson’s next big tournament is the WBC national championships in Ontario in October.