Shellharbour’s Stand-Up Paddle Boarding Queen, Rebecca Dunning, is swapping the SUP board for boxing gloves when she takes on a competitor in the ring at The Battle of the Businesses Fight Night – a boxing tournament on April 20, to help raise money for i98FM Illawarra Convoy 2024.
When asked what inspired her to want to step inside a boxing ring, Bec said: “I love a challenge, and I am very community minded, so I liked the idea of stepping outside my comfort zone and raising funds for Convoy. So, I spoke to Karlie from Tiny Tins who was organising the fighters and begged her to let me participate. Everyone that knows me knows I’m always putting my hand up for something crazy!” (Please note, Bec was sporting a black eye from sparring practice at the time of this interview.)
A qualified fitness instructor, Bec had a taste for boxing through her time teaching cardio boxing, however, when it came time to step inside the ring and start punching an opponent, it took a while for her to get used to it. It became a “mental game” she said, “to get yourself ready to actually punch someone”.
Training for the three two-minute round fundraising fight that Bec will participate in involves 12 weeks of fitness and boxing training, with three training sessions per week at Shellharbour’s Grechys Boxing and Fitness.
“We practice fitness, ducking and weaving, throwing and defending punches. The training sessions are intense, starting off with five minutes of skipping after which I am dripping with sweat!”
And that’s only the warm-up.
The fights are serious stuff, performed in accordance with Boxing NSW rules, and if all required qualifications are met, the fights could even be classified as genuine Boxing NSW matches. On the night, in addition to the celebrity matches, there will be professional boxing matches, as well as entertainment by popular DJ Havana Brown.
Bec is no stranger to jumping feet-first into a challenge to raise money for charity – she performed centre stage at the 2021 Stars of Wollongong Dance for Cancer fundraiser.
She is also well known for helping Shellharbour’s ‘Scooter Dave’ (Dave Williamson), a selfless local who moves around the area on a mobility scooter collecting and returning cans, and then donating the proceeds to charities. So far, he has collected more half a million cans and raised money for many different charities. Bec helps Dave each month, using her SUP van to take his collection to the recycling centre at Unanderra.
Battle of The Businesses, Saturday, April 20 at 5.50pm at WIN Entertainment Centre, Wollongong
