The British monarchy is playing a minor role in reviving boxing in the Caribbean.

King Charles III got an unusual taste of Caribbean boxing during his official visit to The Bahamas, watching young fighters spar before being presented with a T-shirt depicting the British monarch as a boxing champion.

The King’s visit gave the royal imprimatur to the Bahamas Boxing Academy in Nassau and highlighted the growing influence of British boxing philanthropist Nick Maughan CBE, the co-founder of the UK youth boxing charity BoxWise, who established the Bahamian facility in 2025.

Bahamas produced its first world champion in 1975 with Elisha Obed who, won the WBC light middleweight (junior middleweight) title. More recently, Tureano Johnson, an opponent of Jaime Munguia, held the WBC Silver middleweight championship.

The most famous Bahamian fighter was Kimbo Slice (Kevin Ferguson), who competed in MMA before turning to boxing for a stint between 2011 and 2013. Muhammad Ali fought his final professional fight against Trevor Berbick in 1981 (though Ali continued to suggest he would return into the early 1980s).

When We Were  Kings

Held at the British Residence in Nassau, the Sports Academy’s launch was co-hosted with the King’s Trust and the Bahamas Boxing Academy, charities which have all shown a commitment to supporting young people on the Islands. Nick Maughan was joined by Prime Minister Philip Davis, Governor-General Dame Cynthia Pratt and British High Commissioner Smita Rossetti.

"Sport has the power to bring nations together in the way that matters most. It connects communities and it binds people," Davis said.

Dame Cynthia, the King’s representative in The Bahamas, will serve as the charity’s patron, pointing to the continuing royal endorsement of boxing in the Bahamas after the King returns to London. 

More generally, youth engagement has been a central theme of the King’s visit to the Bahamas. A day earlier, he toured the Bahamas Boxing Academy, which Maughan founded in 2025. The Boxing Academy is separate from the new charity but shares its founder and its focus on improving young people’s lives through pugilism.

Presenting itself as “more than a gym,” the Boxing Academy endeavors to offer a beneficial alternative for the country’s youth. The academy offers homework rooms, a computer center and mentoring alongside its provision of boxing coaches. Prime Minister Davis has praised its facilities as the finest in the Caribbean and said it gives young Bahamians a place to discover what they are capable of.

During the tour, the King watched young boxers train and spar, speaking with the athletes and their coaches. Sanai Miller, 12, and his coach, Jermaine Gibson, later presented the King with a T-shirt depicting him as a boxing champion. The King laughed as he accepted it, thanking the two for their “generous” gift. 

A Focus on Youth Engagement

The new Bahamas-UK Sports Academy is intended to extend that approach. Davis, who first asked Maughan to establish the Boxing Academy, said he had welcomed the new venture “at once,” citing the opportunities it would open for young people on the island. 

A Bahamian citizen, Maughan is a firm believer in the role sport has to play in young people’s lives, positing that it gives children “a place to go, an adult who expects something of them, and a reason to turn up on a day when nothing else would get them out of the door.” Indicatively, he has committed to covering the Bahamas-UK Sports Academy’s operating costs in full for its first three years, while also pledging US$1 million in match funding over four years to incentivize additional donations. 

 “I know the moment a young person’s talent meets its chance,” said Mario Bowleg, Minister of Youth, Sport and Culture. The Academy can also address a long-standing imbalance in The Bahamas. Too often, that chance has depended on which island you were born on.” 

Boxing is popular across the Commonwealth countries and was featured at the most recent Commonwealth Games in Scotland last summer.

A Growing Bilateral Partnership 

“Sport has the power to bring nations together in the way that matters most. It connects communities, and it binds people,” said Prime Minister Davis.

As the King continues his Caribbean tour, the Academy begins its work with twofold potential: to widen opportunity for young Bahamians and to give a long-standing Commonwealth relationship a new, more personal dimension.

The young boys and girls in those gyms in the Bahamas may never win a world title but, at least one day they can say they spared for their King.