Bobby Gunn Dedicates IBA Heavyweight Championship Of The World To Spreading Bully Awareness

Feb. 25, 2012 - PRLog -- In recent years the bully epidemic amongst school kids and beyond has grown exponentially.
As this problem continues to escalate on an international level, former IBA World Cruiserweight Champion and current BKB World Heavyweight Champion Bobby "The Celtic Warrior" Gunn has stepped forward to address the issue and is dedicating his upcoming IBA Heavyweight Championship of the World fight against James "Lights Out" Toney to promoting and spreading bully awareness.

“Bullying has become a disease that is slowly killing innocent kids,” said Gunn.  “Parents, teachers and authoritative figures need to be proactive in spreading awareness on how bullying can be dealt with the right way to ensure it does not progress to a deadly level.  Although bullying is a disease, it can be cured.”

The international epidemic has continued to grow out of control, and no longer only occurs in schools; bullying affects all walks of life, regardless of age, sex, color or creed.

“Bullying is no longer about a bigger kid picking on a smaller, weaker kid in the schoolyard,” said Gunn.  “Through the explosion of social media, bullies can now target their victims and abuse them mentally and emotionally.  These bullying issues need to be dealt with immediately before it spirals out of control, and can lead to depression, hate and in the worst case scenario, suicide.”

Gunn is no stranger to bullying.  As a former IBA World Cruiserweight Champion and current World Heavyweight BKB Champion, Gunn continues to face much adversity and hate through social media channels and online venues.

“Bullying isn’t about physically hurting someone,” said Gunn.  “It’s about mentally and emotionally breaking them down, which in the long run is much worse than any physical damage.  Today as I train to fight James Toney for the IBA Heavyweight Championship of the World, I still receive hate mail daily through Facebook.  They constantly berate me and bring me down to their level.  The best way I combat the online ‘bullying’ is to ignore the haters and not give them the satisfaction.  Bullies thrive off of attention; if you take that away from them, they have nothing.”

Gunn continued, “If you are a victim of bullying, it doesn’t mean you are a weaker individual—physically, mentally or emotionally.  It simply means that you are being targeted for one reason only—because the person who is bullying you usually has low self-esteem issues and is very simply jealous of you.  And a bully wakes up in the morning wishing they can be you, and that’s why they attack you.  They take the hate that they feel for themselves and translate it into hurting others to make themselves feel a sense of self-worth.  People need to be proactive and take a stand against bullying.  It isn’t how high you stand on the issue, as long as you take a stand, because if you don’t take a stand for one thing, you will fall for all things.”

Gunn is adamant about spreading ongoing awareness of this problem to help reach kids on an international level.

“If we all make an effort to combat this problem, together we can make a difference,” said Gunn.  “It’s time to start working together to find a solution rather than turning our shoulder the other way and hope the issue goes away on its own.”

Gunn concluded, “I am dedicating my IBA Heavyweight Championship of the World fight against James Toney to all the victims of bullying out there.  It’s time to take a stand, and that time is now.”

For more information on Team Gunn's bid to spread bullying awareness visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fighters-Unite-Against-Bul....

Tickets can be purchased at The Landers Center Box Office in Southhaven, Mississippi, by calling Ticketmaster at (800) 745-3000, or by visiting Ticketmaster online at www.ticketmaster.com.