Pearce. For decades on Teesside it meant just one thing: John Pearce.
A winner at national and international level, the middleweight struck gold for Middlesbrough in the 1990s.
Three decades on, he is still loved and respected for that but he’s now also known as the dad of Jade, the latest J Pearce to go for glory. The date, Saturday, June 20, with the venue Eston Leisure Centre, where Shamrock Promotions stage championship action.
Victory for the 29-year-old against Kirsty Hill in their Commonwealth super-featherweight championship match would bring Boro its first major professional title in 17 years.
Since Paul Truscott was dethroned as Commonwealth featherweight champ in 2009, Middlesbrough has been a title wasteland.
Of course, Punch-lines must add at this point that Darlington’s ‘Trojan’, Troy Williamson, fighting out of the Phil Thomas School of Boxing gym under the coaching of Craig Carney, brought success to Teesside in 2021, when he was crowned British light-middleweight champ.
However, should Jade emerge victorious on the Shamrock show then there will be a champion from a TS postcode to celebrate.
While Hill arrives as the defending champion, having clinched the crown in September 2023, when outpointing Vicky Wilkinson, Pearce will start as favourite, despite it only being only her fifth paid appearance.
The reason? Simply, Pearce has beaten the 34-year-old, from York, in bout number three.
Boxing in a non-title six-rounder last November in Newark, the hometown of her manager Carl Greaves who promoted the show, Jade got the nod 59-55.
In mitigation, it was Kirsty’s first bout in 18 months since outpointing Kenya’s Fatuma Zarika in her maiden title defence in Blackpool.
You would have to observe that Hill is what you would call ‘lightly raced’ because she comes into this massive showdown having not fought since the loss to Pearce – only her third ‘L’ in a fine 7-3 record.
Punch-lines has reported on Hill in her amateur past when she was involved in a terrific contest in Seaton Carew in February 2019, when the Cleethorpes ABC boxer lost a split decision to Hartlepool’s Sadie Thomas on a Headland ABC event, where Savannah Marshall, no less, was at ringside.
Hill fought it out with passion that evening and will not surrender her Commonwealth belt lightly.
For Jade, Saturday is more than business, it’s family business, if you forgive any mafia undertones.
Dad John was the champion of the Commonwealth in 1998 – in his case the Commonwealth Games. In the last four, he beat Ireland’s Brian Magee, who would go on to become a professional world champion, before defeating India’s Jitender Kumar in the final.
Commonwealth gold in Kuala Lumpur and two ABA Championship triumphs should have led to a glittering pro career for Pearce but after 89 amateur bouts he called time when Jade was little.
But she knows exactly what a win on Saturday would mean.
“I want to win world titles and I’m going to do everything in my power to get there,” said Jade.
“But winning the Commonwealth title would mean so much emotionally because that’s what dad won.
“I’ve said from day one that I need to achieve at least what dad achieved.
“While the bigger picture is being a world champion, this is the everything moment for me to say I’ve done what dad did.
“I know one is amateur and one is professional, but I want to be the second Pearce to have the Commonwealth title.
“I’ve always looked up to him and wanted to be exactly like him.”
John, whose dad John Snr was a professional, did his utmost to deter his daughter but when she turned 18 she could not be placated any longer.
Faced with the ultimatum “Now I’m an adult, you can either coach me or I will go somewhere else”, John said yes and the rest is history.
Boxing out of the famous Wellington ABC gym, where the legendary John Dryden trained her dad, Jade advanced quickly under John and enjoyed a good 27-bout amateur career.
Punch-lines was ringside in Sheffield for one of her stand-out nights in 2019, when she defeated Raven Champion in the featherweight final at the GB Championships.
The report noted how Pearce ‘never gave Chapman a moment’s peace, scoring with regularity’.
It should be no surprise that Jade fights with the sort of intensity as her dad.
She blew away a very good Icelandic boxer Valgerdur Gudsteindottir inside three rounds on debut at Eston Leisure Centre 12 months ago and followed that up with points wins over Naila Peloso, Hill and Linzi Buczynskyj.
Speaking in an interview with BBC Radio Tees, it is clear Jade spoke about how long she had to wait even just to pull on the gloves.
“Boxing is all I’ve known,” said Jade who was a sporty kid.
“My dad stopped competing when I was about four but he’d still go to the gym and spar.
“He would try to keep me away but I’d watch him train. He’d only let me skip, nothing else.
“Even when he eventually let me box, he wouldn’t let me punch for six months, it was all foot drills, he tried to make me hate it. It didn’t work.”
Jade would not be put off and should she triumph on Saturday it would be a dream come true moment.
Words: Roy Kelly
