By Colin MacGillivray
IN 16 short months, boxer Jesse James Bolt has gone from Wandong to the world stage.
The teenager is preparing for the trip of a lifetime later this year when he travels to Spain to represent Australia at the International Boxing Association, IBA, Youth World Men’s and Women’s World Championships.
Boxing started as a way to keep fit for football during COVID-19 lockdowns, but quickly turned into an obsession for Bolt, who only set foot inside Wallan’s House of Stoush Boxing Academy for the first time in early 2021.
The hard-hitting super lightweight said he now trained between four and five hours each day, relishing the challenge of top-level competition despite being a relative newcomer.
Bolt earned his spot on the national team after taking out the Australian under 19 title last month, continuing a whirlwind ascension in the sport after making his amateur debut in April last year.
“I’ve been training flat out and I’ve only had one goal. At first it was only to represent Victoria, and before I knew it I’d got the email to represent Australia,” he said.
“I had to have eight fights [to compete] for the Victorian title and represent Victoria. I won that and then I had to have 10 fights to fight at the nationals. Now I’ve won nationals I’m going to represent Australia.
“Throughout the week I do two training sessions a day – one at the gym and one at home. Each day I run five kilometres to keep my fitness up, then I come and train for two hours at the gym.”
Bolt said his first bout at the Australian championships against Queensland champion Abdullah Bassal was ‘nerve-racking’, but any anxiety was quickly dispelled by a first-round stoppage.
Bolt also stopped South Australian champion and pre-event favourite Alex Anastasiou in the third round, setting up a showdown with New South Wales’ Samuel Whitehead in the final – a bout Bolt claimed on points.
He said by his final fight he was feeling confident and comfortable in the ring.
“Once I got the first fight out of the way and I had all my supporters around me it was a breeze. There were almost 150 people there supporting me, and it was the best feeling,” he said.
House of Stoush Boxing Academy owner Bryce Poorter said Bolt had ‘a big future ahead of him’.
“He was very tough from day one. We put him in for a fight pretty quickly because there was no threat of him getting hurt, and his boxing skills have improved fight after fight,” Poorter said.
“He fights similar to Mike Tyson. He’s short, with good head movement, and he’s very, very powerful. Whenever he hits his opponent, he hurts them.”
Bolt will travel to Thailand in September for a warm-up event before the world championships in November.
Poorter said Bolt would face stiff competition in Spain but said he was on a good path.
“The world championships [is generally] where all the big-time boxers go, and from there they turn professional and you see them on your TV screens as pay-per-view fighters,” Poorter said.
“[Jesse has] been boxing for less than two years and the guys he’s going to fight would have been boxing for eight or 10 years. They generally have about 20 fighters from all over the world: the Cubans, the Russians, the Americans – the best of the best.
“It’s pretty exciting that somebody from this little gym in Wallan is going to fight against these big countries.
“He’s going to be up against it, but that’s part of the fun. It’s a good learning experience, and win, lose or draw, he’ll come away from it with a wealth of knowledge.”
Bolt said he would try to embody the nickname his father gave him – Tip Rat – when fighting at the championships by taking a scrappy, underdog mentality into the ring.
“That’s the attitude I try to take in the ring. There’s no one out there named Tip Rat in the boxing industry, so when you hear that name you know it’s me,” he said.
“I’ve only got one goal now, and that’s to be number one.
“I’m going to go over there with the mindset that no one can beat me, and if I keep thinking it and put the hard work in, hopefully it will become a reality.”
