Over 35 box­ers will put their skills to the test to­day when the T&T Am­a­teur Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion's (TTA­BA) Na­tion­al Am­a­teur Box­ing Cham­pi­onship opens at the Wood­brook Youth Fa­cil­i­ty, from 6 pm.

Ac­tion will be open in the ju­nior to open cat­e­gories with chal­lengers ex­pect­ed to give their all in what may turn out to be the ba­sis of pos­si­ble se­lec­tion on the na­tion­al team for up­com­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions through­out the year.

The top clubs in the coun­try, from Mag­ic Box­ing Gym to To­ba­go Dark War­riors and Cos­mic Box­ing Gym to Rough House, will show­case their tal­ents in the open­ing stan­za of the tour­na­ment which will end on Sat­ur­day.

To­day, over four hours of ac­tion will grace the venue, with pos­si­bly some of T&T's large­ly un­known ath­letes com­ing to the fore­front. Last year, a de­por­tee from the Unit­ed States, Ak­il Thomas im­pressed the judges all the way to a sil­ver medal in the 60kg novice wel­ter­weight cat­e­go­ry, af­ter a loss to the even­tu­al cham­pi­on Dar­win Sina­ree. He was hailed by train­ers for his strong per­for­mances de­spite not be­ing ad­e­quate­ly pre­pared for the fight.

From 6 pm, fight­ers who may not have yet de­vel­oped the best stance or the per­fect strike will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to out­wit their op­po­nent in one way or an­oth­er in the non-pro­fes­sion­al form of the dis­ci­pline, and hope­ful­ly progress up the ranks in their re­spec­tive weight and class di­vi­sions.

Some of to­day's most no­table chal­lengers in­clude Joash Walkins of Rough House, St James, who will sport red against his chal­lenger Dwayne Vieira of Black Hawks in the Wel­ter­weight (69kg elite open) cat­e­go­ry. Cos­mic's De­clan­Cal­liste, who chal­lenged the 2012 Olympic qual­i­fiers in Brazil, will al­so be in the ring when he faces an­oth­er for­mer T&T rep­re­sen­ta­tive, Lav­el Nurse of To­ba­go, in the same cat­e­go­ry.

The night is ex­pect­ed to open with a clash be­tween Dariel Ad­dams (Sand City) and Ernest Ap­ple­white (White Ea­gle) (see sched­uled fights be­low).

TONIGHT's SCHED­ULE

Wel­ter­weight (64kg ju­nior)

Dariel Ad­dams (Sand City) v Ernest Ap­ple­white (White Ea­gle)

Ron­dell Fer­di­nand (White Ea­gle) v Dex­ter Vil­laroel (Bio­mel)

Light Mid­dleweight (64kg ju­nior)

Reynold Bel­con (Sand City) v Ryan Cum­mings (Gold­en Fist)

Light Mid­dleweight (69kg ju­nior)

Shaquille Aguillera (White Ea­gle) v Nathan Fran­cis (Sand City)

Light Wel­ter­weight (64kg youth)

Kadeem Ajim (To­ba­go Dark War­riors) v Omar Smith (Rough House)

Mikhail Roberts (THA Elite) v Asad Fa­bi­en (Mag­ic)

Light Heavy­weight (81kg youth)

Ker­rell Christo­pher (White Ea­gle) v Vern Cara­bal­lo (Bio­mel)

Light­weight (60kg elite novice)

Shaquille Mo­hammed (Moru­ga) v Kyle Ra­goonath (Ul­ti­mate Gym)

Light Wel­ter­weight (64kg novice)

David Fran­cique (TTDF) v Conelle Mc­Clean (Willpow­er)

Light Wel­ter­weight (64kg elite novice)

Sheffield Bel­graves (Mag­ic) v Chevon Cop­per (Sand City)

Wel­ter­weight (69kg elite novice)

Quin­cy Su­per­sad (YANS) v Matthew Charles (Cos­mic)

Kieon Car­dinez (Ul­ti­mate Gym) v Mikhail Ra­goo­nanan (Willpow­er)

Dami­an De­o­dath (Fight­ers Club) v Nicholas Potts (YANS)

Darin Sinaswee (Ul­ti­mate Gym) v Wayne Amann (To­ba­go Dark War­riors)

Joash Walkins (Rough House) v Dwayne Vieira (Black Hawks)

Lav­el Nurse (THA) v De­clan Cal­liste (Cos­mic)

Keslon Ray­mond (Mag­ic) v Jeromey George (YTC)

Heavy­weight (81kg elite novice)

Mar­i­nus Coutain (Fine Line) v Evans Jack­son (Willpow­er)