Midwestern Super Lightweights Jeff Camp and Traye Labby clash for the vacant American Boxing Federation USA Mid American title Saturday, Sept. 29 at Indiana’s Rising Star Casino in the main event of Nate Tubbs Events & Promotions’ card
Saturday, September 29, Dayton-based Super Lightweight Jeff “The Nightmare” Camp travels to the Rising Star Casino for his third appearance in the Hoosier State. The 29-year-old southpaw is slated to face Illinois’ Traye Labby, 23, for the vacant American Boxing Federation’s USA Mid American Super Lightweight title in the main event of a card promoted by Nate Tubbs.
Camp – then 0-1-2 at the time – is the first professional boxer this writer had the opportunity to sit down and interview a couple of years ago. That podcast interview resulted in dozens of boxing articles at GoingFor2.com, to the launch of a boxing page on that Daily Fantasy Sports-focused (DFS) site, to dozens of articles here at RoundByRoundBoxing.com, and most recently the launch of BiteDownBoxing.com along with its podcast of the same name.
Since that initial encounter in early 2016 Camp has gradually righted the ship, and his record now stands at 4-2-1 with four consecutive knockouts. A little over 24 months ago, Camp abruptly silenced a packed house in Indiana with a devastating second round knockout of veteran boxer Agustin Cicero – his biggest challenge to date. Saturday he’ll be looking to do the same.
Camp’s professional record belies his true experience, and possibly his level of talent, as his background boasts of a bout versus undefeated Super Welterweight Kanat Islam (25-0, 20 KOs) in Los Angeles on a 2012 World Series of Boxing show. That was a middleweight contest he accepted earlier in the week. This ABF title leads to additional opportunities for the Dayton-native, so it was imperative that Bite Down Boxing visit the hungry fighter during his final days of training camp at the M Power gym in Vandalia, Ohio to see what he has in store for Labby and Indiana boxing fans. Check out the interview in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7syE2MEbjVY&t=18s
To this point, Camp hasn’t experienced the success of Islam. Fighting out of Dayton, he hasn’t garnered the attention of capable boxing managers and promoters with adequate resources and clout. Career-advancing opportunities haven’t developed for him to spend invaluable time in training camp with current world champions like Cincinnati Welterweight Boubacar Sylla who recently trained with Terence Crawford. Leading promotional company Top Rank hasn’t called Camp like it did its recent Toledo-based signee Albert Bell. We’re not even mentioning Cleveland Middleweight Michael Moore, currently a round-one winner on The Contender series airing on EPIX, or WBC Continental Americas Featherweight titleholder Yuandale Evans.
One could easily begin to lose hope as favor seems to continually avoid visiting the Gem City, but with an exciting performance Saturday evening, perhaps come Sunday morning there’s a brighter outlook for The Nightmare.
Saturday night, Camp will be joined on the card by fellow Daytonian Will Clemons who is scheduled to face Super Welterweight Muhammad Adams. Clemons is a Mayweather Boxing Club product who has sparred the likes of WBC Welterweight champion Shawn Porter, as well as several other renown fighters. The two last fought on the same card back in June of 2016, when professional boxing returned to Dayton for the first time in over two decades. Both fighters electrified their hometown supporters, and punished their respective opponents, with explosive first round knockouts.
Interested fans can inquire about tickets by contact the Rising Star Casino at 1-800-472-6311 and selecting option “2” throughout the rest of the week.
All photos by Troy Pope
