THE fourth staging of the Wray and Nephew Contender series is anticipating another great season with a new sponsor on board, it was announced at a launch at Television Jamaica’s studios on Thursday.

Title sponsor Wray and Nephew White Overproof Rum welcomes a new partner for the 2014 season in the Wisynco distributed Schweppes grapefruit soda, the two being a popular mix among Jamaican drinkers.

Another new dimension to the season is a television feature called Dog Bites, which will see Miguel ‘Iron Dog’ Raye visiting watering holes across Jamaica getting the views of drinkers of Jamaica’s finest, Wray and Nephew White Overproof Rum.

Also, a fan zone will be set up at the Chinese Benevolent Society, where the show will be taped each week and beamed to 600 bars islandwide in a programme billed ‘Celebrate The Champion In You’.

Thrown in the mix of local boxers, will be gladiators from Guyana and Barbados, who are from Andrew Boland’s Yellow Team. Boland’s boys, as usual, will go in the ring against the Carl Grant-coached Green Team.

The series, which gets going on March 19 live on TVJ, will see the ultimate champion walk away with a whopping $2 million, up from $1 million last year.

Boland, who coached Devon ‘Concrete’ Moncrieffe to the top prize last season, in his usual colourful style, is already eyeing a repeat long before the first punch is thrown.

“What I see here is a great opportunity for me and my team, as I have to work with foreign fighters, who I am confident in, and I think I have a shot of winning Wray and Nephew’s (top) prize money,” he said.