Jag Seehra admitted he had chills running down his spine as he walked into the ring to a thunderous ovation.
The hometown crowd did what it could to fire up the 23-year-old Inner City Boxing Club member but it wasn't enough to ice Nick Jefferson.
After slow start, Jefferson found his groove and left Seehra wishing he hadn't woken the sleeping giant.
Four out of five judges gave Jefferson, a 2013 U.S. bronze medalist, the 64 kg decision Saturday.
"He had that first round pretty easily and I came back to my corner and did what my coach said I should do," said Jefferson, a member of the Tacoma (Wash.) Boxing Club. "I won the fight from the body work and coming up top. It was a tougher fight than the first time. It's pretty satisfying."
Seehra was left swinging at air often and was taken by surprise by Jefferson's strategy, a radical departure from what he showed in the ring when he beat Seehra four months ago in Tacoma.
"He was busier, he wasn't as hesitant and I was trying to press the action but he would stay in there and trade with me, and that kind of threw me off," said Seehra. "He was stronger than the last time I fought him, a totally different fighter."
Jefferson admitted he had to work harder in the rematch. Seehra came out firing and had Jefferson backed up with an effective jab and a series of body shots that gave him the early lead. Jefferson got busy in the second round and drew close and kept the momentum going in the third, bloodying Seehra's nose.
But it didn't seem to faze the Inner City fighter.
Sent to his corner twice by the referee to mop up the blood, Seehra resumed the action each time by connecting with Jefferson's face, but it was too little too late.
Other match results
In a 60 kg bout, three-time junior national champion Cody Brown of Mission showed speed and power in an impressive decision over A.J. Bopari of Kelowna. Bopari got backed into the corner near the end of the second round and Brown teed off on him with a couple of combinations that were trouble for Bopari, who managed to hang on to push it to a third round.
Brown's older brother Jessie, a three-time senior national champ and youth commonwealth silver medalist won the battle of the birthday boys, a split-decision 69 kg win over Spencer Howard of Kelowna.
Randall Graham of Shaolin Boxing Club in Prince George kicked off the fight card in the 75 kg class with a doctor-stopped second-round defeat of Dan Mott of Quesnel.
Thirteen-year-old rookie Kaiden Witso of Inner City opened his amateur fight book with a stamp of victory, a unanimous 64 kg decision over 15-year-old Connor Ogilvie of Salmon Arm, also making his first ring appearance.
In the 69 kg class, Sassan Haghight-joo of Maple Ridge scored a split-decision win over Devon Reti of Calgary. Alex Legault,a two-time Canadian champion who used to fight for Inner City but now lives in Calgary, was left bloody in a lopsided 52 kg loss to Sara Haghight-joo of Maple Ridge.
In an energy-packed 72 kg slugfest, Calvin Tedesco of Shaolin earned a split decision over Lucas Gelinas of Quesnel.
