{"id":794882,"date":"2026-10-07T14:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T14:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/794882\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T14:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T14:08:08","slug":"coventry-commonwealth-boxer-aaron-bowen-takes-first-step-to-world-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/794882\/","title":{"rendered":"Coventry Commonwealth boxer Aaron Bowen takes first step to world title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A boxer who opted against pursuing an Olympic place with Team GB says the decision is paying off after winning the first professional title of his career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Aaron Bowen, who won<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/commonwealth-games\/62350907\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Commonwealth Games bronze in Birmingham in 2022<\/a>, claimed the Midlands super-middleweight belt with a unanimous points victory over Klinton Baptiste in Birmingham.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 27-year-old said the win marked another step towards his ambition of becoming a world champion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s my first belt as a professional and that will be with me for life now, no-one can ever take that away from me,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Bowen secured the British Boxing Board of Control&#8217;s Midlands title at Birmingham&#8217;s Utilita Arena in just his ninth professional bout.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Coventry fighter turned professional after the Commonwealth Games rather than competing for a place in Team GB&#8217;s Olympic squad, despite admitting he had dreamed of fighting on the sport&#8217;s biggest amateur stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;There were a lot of us going for that one spot and I just thought, &#8216;strike while the iron&#8217;s hot&#8217;,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I had the opportunity to turn professional and reach my goal of becoming a world champion.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A boxer who opted against pursuing an Olympic place with Team GB says the decision is paying off&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-794882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}