Oakland's Lion: Amari Jones Carries Bay Area to Malabo Fight Night

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea — Amari Jones maybe in Africa but, he has Oakland on his back. The undefeated Oakland prospect is 13-0 with twelve knockouts in the wide open middleweight division.

Equatorial Guinea has decided to invest in boxing in a way and Oakland's Amari Jones fights tonight on the undercard of the first major card in that country's history. The WBC title eliminator between Souleymane Cissokho of France and Egidijus Kavaliauskas of Lithuania will take place at a state of the art facility in Malabo with Mount Cameroon looming across the water in the distance.

Amari Jones maybe in Africa but, he has Oakland on his back. The undefeated Oakland prospect is 13-0 with twelve knockouts in the wide open middleweight division.

His opponent is Kyle Lomotey (12-3) a Ghanian-British fighter. The night before the fight Lomotey walked around the lobby of the Malabo Sofitel trading smiles with his team. Jones called it an early night.

This is the biggest fight card in this part of Africa since the Rumble in the Jungle in 1974. That fight took place across the water in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On the boxing records site BoxRec lists only six professional cards in the history of the country, until tonight.

The Bay Area despite producing major talent in recent years is also not a boxing hub. Jones wants to change that. He is a globally minded fighter who has travelled to Dubai and Saudi Arabia. His fights in Australia have also built him a small fan base in that country.

It isn’t unusual for a fighter of his class to have global ties but, Jones also has deep roots in Oakland.