In May of 1997 Spencer Oliver becomes the European Super Bantamweight Champion defeating defending Champion Martin Krastev in six rounds. Spencer - making a difficult job look easy - is neither out of his depth, nor short on confidence. An agile boxing brain, coupled with heavy punching power enables the supremely prepared Oliver to dismantle the Bulgarian. It was a remarkable performance from the 21 year old Barnet man. It is also becoming evident that Spencer will be an incredibly popular European Champion.
Spencer makes the first defence of his European Title against mandatory challenger Serge Poilblan. The teak tough Frenchman meets Spencer on July the 12th at the London Olympia. The challenger is defeated unanimously. Spencer's career is building momentum, he is exciting to watch with blistering hand speed and combinations. In a pre social media era where profile was harder to achieve he is regularly in the national papers, featuring in magazine articles and appearing on various TV shows. Premier league footballers, TV personalities, actor Sean Bean and nineties superstar Robbie Williams attend his fights at ringside. His fan base is growing and he is becoming one of the most talked about young boxers in the World. There is a consensus that Spencer has the necessary tools to make the transition from European level to World Champion. Unfortunately in life sometimes things do not go to plan. Spencer would go onto make a further two defences, against Fabrice Benechou and Vincenzo Belcastro, before succumbing to a life threatening injury whilst making the fourth defence of his title at the Royal Albert Hall. For Spencer to lose so much in the prime of his life was tragic. He had the World at his feet. There are a lot of fighters with outstanding ability, but sometimes that is not enough to make people turn out in their thousands to watch. Oliver had the full package, punch power,commitment, charisma, courage and excitement. He was that special. Thankfully and miraculously Spencer made a full recovery and in 1998 starts his career at Sky Sports as a commentator and boxing analyst, a job he mantains to this day.
We agree to stage a series of 10 boxing events to be broadcast on BBC Grandstand. The first is the British Light Middleweight Championship between Delroy Leslie and Ensley Bingham. Bingham's famed left hook brings the nights entertainment to a close as he knocks out Lesley in 7 rounds. The fight only went ahead thanks to the then sports minister Richard Cabon's helpful assistance in securing Jamacian born Delroy a British Passport. Leslie, although having lived in England for many years, had never reapplied for a passport. The sports ministers help in getting the passport enabled him to fight for the esteemed Lonsdale belt and for us to have the show broadcast on the BBC.
JBD help broker a deal with the PDC to bring the Players Championship Finals to Butlins in Minehead. The event is a resounding success selling out its 4600 capacity. We also stage a series of darts events at the resort throughout the year.
We sign charismatic Cruiserweight Wadi Camacho in late 2013. The Prize Fighter Champion talks his way into a WBC International title fight against fierce rival Stephen Simmons in June 2014.Social media plays a big part in the build up, both fighters trading insults before the ink is dry on the contract. It quickly gets out of hand when an imposed image of Stephen's fiancee gets put on twitter. We are rightly hauled up to Scotland and read the riot act by the Scottish Board of Control. A month later we are in back in Glasgow for fight week. Camacho has made this fight into a big occasion with all the national papers north of the border covering the fight on their back pages. His constant sniping of Simmons has got into the Scottish publics head and a full Braehead Arena is like a bear pit once the fight starts. In truth the fight never quite lived up to the pre fight hype but it was level pegging on all three judges scorecards until Camacho walked into a big uppercut in the last round and was rescued by the referee. In 2014 Camacho takes on unbeaten Welshman Craig Kennedy and is disqualifed in the third round. The call for a conclusive outcome for the fight was strong and so both men traded blows again in March 2015. This time an impressive performance from Kennedy saw him stop Wadi inside the distance. In 2016 Wadi won the Southern Area Cruiserweight Title. We wish him well.
JBD help to bring televised Darts to Arena MK for the first time. The PDC stage the Masters to a sold out 7000 crowd held over two days in the last weekend in January.
In 2016 we increase our customer base and volume of events by staging our first 2 day darts show at Searles Resort in Hunstanton. The show was a resounding success and we are immediately asked to return in 2018. We are also putting on more events at Butlins and our Night Before the Players Championship show in November is attended by over 2000 people for the first time.
We specialise in arranging and hosting successful Sporting Events. We are also very proud to stage the PDC Fishing Championship an annual event broadcast on Sky Sports.
The Championship features a host of household names from the World of Sport and Celebrity. The aim is to help raise vital funding for one of the PDC's chosen charitis. For full details of the event please go to www.pdcfishing.co.uk
