{"id":808378,"date":"2026-10-20T07:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-20T07:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/808378\/"},"modified":"2026-10-20T07:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-20T07:28:09","slug":"boxer-billy-schwer-supports-luton-anti-knife-crime-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/808378\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxer Billy Schwer supports Luton anti-knife crime event"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A boxing event aimed at turning young people away from knife crime has been supported by a former champion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The fight night at Venue Central in Luton on Saturday was backed by former British, Commonwealth and European lightweight champion Billy Schwer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said he was glad to support his home town and &#8220;a great cause&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Attendee and former town mayor, Mohammed Riaz, said the core motto of the event was &#8220;knives down, gloves up&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said Luton had gained a negative reputation for knife crime and drugs, with young people becoming victims of stabbings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;To find a solution to this serious issue, business figures, professionals and young people in Luton joined forces to organise a boxing tournament, aimed at steering children toward sports activity,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Boxing contests were arranged by Pressure Promotions which was set up by local youngsters, said the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/lnp\/ldrs\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Local Democracy Reporting Service<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;They successfully turned the evening into a highly engaging event, with a significant turnout of community representatives and boxers,&#8221; said Riaz.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Speakers stressed that our young people don&#8217;t lack talent but simply need to be encouraged toward sports by parents, who must play a vital role in achieving this.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A boxing event aimed at turning young people away from knife crime has been supported by a former&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-808378","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\/808378","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=808378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}