Boxer Joe Smith, Jr. of Laborers Local 66 shocks the world and a UCOMM website gets major traffic: If you're a boxing fan, then you were definitely watching the Light Heavyweight fight between Joe Smith Jr and Andrzej Fonfara on NBC on Saturday, June 18, 2016. Fonfara was the massive fan favorite in the main event of the Premier Boxing Championship. In a shocking upset, a real contender for Upset of the Year, the Long Island,NY native Smith drilled Fonfara with a big right hand that knocked Fonfara to the ground. Fonfara made it back to his feet, but Smith immediately started attacking again, firing off 14 unanswered punches that began and ended with a right to the jaw. The referee stopped the fight in the first round in less than three minutes.
The best part about the Smith story is that he is a construction worker and an active member with Laborers Local 66. That local is like family to us here at UCOMM, so watching Smith fight was like having a brother in the ring. We were celebrating just the same as all of the laborers watching the fight back at the local union hall. On top of the astonishing win, what we saw during the post game interview amazed us. As the infamous Marv Albert talked to Smith about his friends and family back home on the island, the Laborers 66 website popped up on screen, followed by a screenshot of the story posted encouraging people to watch Smith's fight, a story we just recently published at the request of the Union leadership. Our website and a story of our design was broadcast on National television, to 1.24 million viewers that were watching the Premier Boxing Championship. We were so excited that a major network like NBC broadcasted our mobile friendly website as the perfect way to showcase Smith's labor background to all of its viewers. Not only is our website design of high quality with strong content, but it is also the perfect vehicle to get the locals message out to the world. The hard work and dedication that it takes to keep these websites up and running is completely worth it when we see our work on national television. - Katie Hogan, UCOMMBlog.com