NJ Diamond Gloves finals begin this Saturday in Paterson

Attention Diamond Gloves finalists: cancel any dessert plans for the rest of the week. You’ve got some weight to make.

The NJ Diamond Gloves finals will proceed as originally planned this Saturday, October 25 at True Warriors Boxing in Paterson. The plans were officially announced on Wednesday evening in an email that hit inboxes at 10:09 p.m., with eight bouts scheduled for this coming weekend, and another two scheduled for the following Saturday, November 1.

An earlier email from the New Jersey LBC suggested that the finals could be held on Nov. 1 and 8 due to the high number of DQ/no shows in the tournament limiting how many finals matchups would take place. That would have meant that fights could have been shifted instead to previously scheduled day-show cards on November 1 (at True Warriors) and November 8 (at Legacy Boxing in Belleville).

As it is, there will be eight finals matchups set for this Saturday, with the weigh-in to be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and the fights to start at 2 p.m. The matchups are as follows:

154lbs open class: Christian Taveras Martinez vs. Mark Ellison

132lbs open class: Erik Mendez vs. Yohenrry Rosario

165lbs open class: Jordan Simpson vs. Shahiyd Terry

143lbs open class: Randy Cardona vs. Xavier Correa

143lbs youth male: Makai Moore vs. Gerard Diaz Jimenez

143lbs novice (semifinal): Andrew Atienza vs. Sebastian Silva

132lbs novice: Khalid Murray vs. Michael Cuba Tarazona

165lbs novice: Donte Foster vs. William Rivas

The Nov. 1 show will have just two finals matchups set for that show, with the winner of this Saturday’s final to meet Strategic Combat’s Vincent Torres in the 143lbs novice final, and Bradley Rossignol vs. Jandel Martinez to decide the youth 154lbs novice final. That show is set to follow the same schedule as this weekend’s event.

This year’s tournament was the first in several years that the run on consecutive weeks instead of the one-week format it had followed in recent times.