{"id":641669,"date":"2026-05-01T22:01:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/641669\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T22:01:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T22:01:14","slug":"inner-city-boxers-ready-to-rumble-in-quesnel-prince-george-daily-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/641669\/","title":{"rendered":"Inner City boxers ready to rumble in Quesnel \u2013 Prince George Daily News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Canaan Woodrow, left, Melissa O\u2019Flynn and Ben Ruttan will all be in the ring for Rumble 35 on Saturday night in Quesnel.<\/p>\n

When Canaan Woodrow is in the ring, he has that look about him. It\u2019s the look of a street fighter. Someone you don\u2019t want to mess with.<\/p>\n

Everything about the 17-year-old Woodrow is intimidating. The cold, I-dare-you expression on his face, the confident, aggressive posture, the two gloved fists poised and ready to go to work as soon as the bell sounds \u2013 all of it makes him a scary presence for an opponent.<\/p>\n

And for the past year or so, Woodrow has been adding to these innate qualities. As a member of Inner City Boxing PG, he has been working almost daily on blending skill, technique and knowledge with his back-alley ferocity.<\/p>\n

On Saturday night in Quesnel, Woodrow will try to put it all together at the Rumble 35 fight card, hosted by 2 Rivers Boxing. He\u2019ll take on\u00a0Tanzeel Sait of the Queensborough Boxing Club in New Westminster\u00a0and he\u2019s ready to let the beast inside of him come out.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoxing is one of the hardest sports in the world when it comes to conditioning, when it comes to nerve management \u2013 it\u2019s a lot, and you really have to be able to get into that zone,\u201d Woodrow said. \u201cYou have to be tunnel-visioned \u2013 this is all that matters, this is life or death almost.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe live in a very comfortable society, and being able to do a really hard thing and come out on top of it, you have to get into that zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodrow will also be fired up because his last real bout was back in January at the Alberta Silver Gloves in Medicine Hat. He moved up a weight class to 63 kilograms while his opponent, Khalil Saghir of Chestermere, Alta., moved down. Saghir proved to be a bit stronger and perhaps a bit more skilled on his way to victory. Since then, Woodrow has steadily added to his own strength and skillset, and he\u2019s excited about testing everything out on Saturday against Sait.<\/p>\n

\u201cComparing January to now, I feel great,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m in the best shape I\u2019ve ever been in going into a fight, and I feel like I\u2019m going to come out with a win. But my focus is going to be to put on the best performance I can. That\u2019s pretty much all I can do. I can\u2019t control the result, all I can control is my performance. I\u2019m going to do my best, find my jab, keep moving. That\u2019s the main thing, keep moving \u2013 I can\u2019t stay stationary.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Inner City, Woodrow is coached by Jag Seehra and Kenny Lally. The two coaches have seen the fierce fighter in Woodrow from the beginning, and they\u2019ve been working to make him the complete package when he\u2019s in the ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that he can fight, but now we wanted to really just take him away from the fight game and really work on his boxing,\u201d Seehra said. \u201cThe last month we\u2019ve had him on agility training where he\u2019s really focusing on his footwork \u2013 quick feet, in and out \u2013 and all the work is done now. He\u2019s ready to let the Canaan out of the cage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodrow will be joined at Rumble 35 by Inner City teammate Ben Ruttan, and also by Melissa O\u2019Flynn, who represents 2 Rivers Boxing and Inner City. Both fighters are scheduled to have exhibition bouts.<\/p>\n

The 18-year-old Ruttan checks in at an imposing six-foot-three and 210 pounds. Like Woodrow, he hasn\u2019t fought since the Alberta Silver Gloves in January.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just what happens, especially guys my size, you\u2019ve got to wait that long,\u201d Ruttan said. \u201cI lost that Silver Gloves fight so I kind of got down. I told myself I wasn\u2019t going to, but then the past two-and-a-half, three months, I\u2019ve been locked in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been working on keeping my hands up, my breathing, my technique, staying composed and actually just learning boxing. Before, I\u2019d just brawl and just want to finish the guy but now it\u2019s boxing \u2013 moving, slipping punches, footwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

For O\u2019Flynn, 30, Saturday night will be a chance to fight in front of a hometown crowd. It will also mark a bit of a comeback for her.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Flynn lives in Quesnel and has grown her skills at 2 Rivers under the guidance of longtime coach Wally Doern. Intent on getting to a new level, she started doing extra training at Inner City a little over a year ago. Her dedication paid off when she landed a spot on Team B.C., but then she suffered an injury and had to take some time to heal.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Flynn is now ready to get back inside the ropes and is counting down the hours until she gets to do her\u00a0thing in front of friends and family.<\/p>\n

One of her brothers will be seeing her fight for the very first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s super exciting,\u201d O\u2019Flynn said. \u201cAnd then my mom, a couple of my other brothers, too \u2013 I love it when my family\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though O\u2019Flynn might be tempted to land some crowd-pleasing bombs, she\u2019s mindful that her opponent is brand new to the sport. That being the case, she sees the bout as an opportunity to work on her overall game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be really good for me to just focus on my technical stuff, work on my defence, really slow it down, and also have fun,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Rumble 35 happens at Bouchie Lake Hall. Doors open at 6 p.m., with fights to follow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canaan Woodrow, left, Melissa O\u2019Flynn and Ben Ruttan will all be in the ring for Rumble 35 on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-641669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}