Fighting Fathers to spread their message in Guinness World Record attempt (Sydney, March 16)

After preaching his Palm Sunday sermon on April 1, 2012, Father Dave Smith of the Holy Trinity Church in Dulwich Hill will enter the boxing ring for a record 120 rounds over eight hours.

Fifty year-old ‘Fighting’ Father Dave, as he is known by his community, is a professional boxer and he is attempting the world record for the greatest number of continuous rounds in the ring.

The officially-sanctioned event will be played according to ‘Queensbury Rules’ with a referee and medics in attendance throughout the day. If successful, Father Dave will smash the previous world record of 25 rounds, as well as the unofficial record of 111 rounds.

Father Dave will be joined in the ring by Rev Caine Pennell, pastor of the Church of the Nazarene in Enmore, and Rev John Smuts, pastor of Petersham Baptist Church.

He will also face off against some of Australia’s boxing legends, including both Anthony Mundines, Jr and Snr, Lovemore N’dou (two times world champion), Solomon Haumono (Australian heavyweight champion), Solomon Egberime (African and Australian champion), Nader Hamdan (former Aussie and Pan-Pacific champion) and Lauryn Eagle (boxer, water-ski champion and model) as well as media personalities John Safran and Andrew Denton and members of the local community.

The box-a-thon will raise desperately needed funds for the youth drop-in centre Father Dave runs in Dulwich Hill, which brings together young people from the local community and rehabilitates those with drug and alcohol addiction by teaching them to box.

It is also forms part of Father Dave’s interfaith dialogue which is working across religious divides to provide outreach services to the diverse community of the Inner West.

“Over the years we have had great success in teaching young people to control their emotions and their destructive behaviour through boxing,” says Father Dave.

“Together, we would like to take our show further afield – perhaps a cross between the old-time Evangelistic tent-crusades and the boxing circus, which was equally a feature of a generation past!”