Irish Boxing

mccrory hasnt boxed for a while ... or am i mistaken... whereabouts is this the holiday inn?

 

Quotes from Khan and McCloskey's Belfast press conference

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Some quotes from the packed Khan-McCloskey press conference at Belfast's Ulster Museum...

Eddie Hearn (Managing Director of Matchroom Sport and promoter of European light-welterweight champion Paul McCloskey)
“I think this is a great fight for the Irish people and a great fight for Paul and it is going to be a special day for Irish sport. I believe personally that Paul will have more fans in that arena than Khan will have. I think it is going to banged out on the night with a lot of sports fans, a lot interested spectators, but in terms of loyal, passionate fans I think Paul will have the edge there and it is something that we are adamant that we get a fair crack at the whip because there needs to be a lot of support there for Paul and I know you guys (Irish fans) will turn out there in your droves."
Paul McCloskey
“I have worked a long time in my career to get to this point, in the last 5 ½ years I have had 22 fights and I done it the traditional route with the British and European titles and I am world ranked – so deserving of this shot. We are ready for this fight. He (Khan) could have went for Lamont Peterson who in his last fight had a draw, but I don’t think people were looking forward to that fight so I am glad that he chose me.
“I have never really used a strength and conditioning trainer, but I started with a conditioner last week so if anything that is just going to propel and make me stronger in other areas. I aim to be in shape of my life and firing on all cylinders. I am always confident of victory, I don’t know how to lose professionally. Obviously this is a massive step up in class, but I have fought world class opponents in my last ten fights and I dealt with them ok. I will have to at my best if not better to do a job on him.
“To me this is a rainbow fight and at the end of the rainbow is a pot of gold and that will bring me on to the next platform to do a job. For me that will have to be one hell of a job, it will have to be a career best for me but I know it is in there and as long as I have done my preparation, have no injuries, am not sick I am confident of winning the fight.
“The support I have been getting so far has been immense. The feedback we have been getting has been serious. I feel that if all the tickets were coming my way – we would get rid of them all as the feedback for this fight has been super. I hope people that can get into the arena that we know and that will help me on the night for definite.”
Amir Khan
“It is a great turn out today, it is always great to come to Ireland. The Irish public are huge boxing fans, they are true boxing fans. You know with Irish fighters, they are strong, have got big heart.I am sure you will remember when Eamonn Magee fought Ricky Hatton, he put Ricky Hatton down and it shows how much heart you Irish have. I am fighting Paul McCloskey who is going to be up for this fight. It is going to be a huge fight for both of us really, I have not fought in England for the last 14 months, my last two fights were in America – so it is going to be a big night for me coming home in front of my home fans in Manchester and against an undefeated fighter.
“I have seen Paul fighting a few times and he got good lateral movement, he is a southpaw, very awkward, and I think he is going to bring a lot of tricky things, he is going to be a tough fight. A lot of people are making this sound that I am odds on to win but Paul McCloskey is a tough opponent he is not an easy guy to beat.
“We are going to do our homework. I fly to America on Thursday. We spoke about Paul and my trainer, Freddie Roach is happy to take this fight on, so we start training in LA for four weeks and from there we go to the Philippines and I am going to be training with Manny Pacquaio – who is also a southpaw. I am going to train very hard for this fight, I always train as if I am the challenger and I am going to five it 100% on the night. I am going to say good luck to Paul and all the Irish people out there and come the 16th April it is going to be a big massive night.”
Irish fight fans are urged to keep check www.paulmccloskey.com for imminent ticketing information. There will be a large allocation of tickets for Paul McCloskey’s fans and in the next 24 hours full details of this should be added to the fighters website. In addition, a package of tickets, coach and ferry and accommodation is being organised by Breens Gym and details will appear on www.paulmccloskey.com

 

Are you feeling alright? :blood

 

Duh!

 

How about this one Slap,


Khan you think you are the one,
But Dudeys going to have some fun,
Don't stop moving baby,
All your moves just drive him crazy,

Wiggle wiggle wiggle

Hide your face all night long,
But your end is coming Khan.
Don't stop moving baby,
All your moves just drive him crazy,

Wiggle wiggle wiggle

 

Ye should have entered the contest to write Ireland's entry for the eurovision lads. Jedward would do a hell of a job on either of those numbers.

 

Sorry but---> Total Cheese!

 

:stirop

 

It's not a very catchy chant but what music would you put that to.

 

you're right, it aint got no melody!

 

AMERICA AT LARGE: DOES LIFE imitate art, or art imitate life? Five years earlier, Wayne Kelly had been the referee who took Shelby Pudwill into protective custody the night John Duddy knocked him down three times in the first two minutes of their fight at Madison Square Garden. Now here was Kelly, counting over Duddy’s prostrate form in a ring on the stage at the Atlantic Theatre Company.

At almost any time you could name over the past half-dozen years, providing John Duddy with the look of a busted-up prizefighter would not have greatly challenged the creative powers of a resourceful theatrical make-up artist.

Even when he won, which he usually did, the Derry middleweight could be relied upon to spring a new leak or two, and there were at least a few fights over that stretch from which Duddy emerged with his face looking like freshly-chopped hamburger.

Which helps to explain Lou DiBella’s surprised reaction when he ran into Duddy and his wife, Gráinne, at the New York premiere of Lights Out in early January. Seven months had elapsed since the boxer had last been bloodied, in a loss to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr in San Antonio, and time seemed to have eradicated any vestigial residue of that night’s carnage.

“I was struck by how good he looked,” recalled the promoter. “I’m talking movie-star looks. It had been long since I’d seen him looking so fresh.

“ ‘John,’ I told him, ‘You look marvellous. Taking all that time off has obviously done you a world of good’,” recalled DiBella. “Looking back on it now, I can’t believe what I said next. I actually told him, ‘You look so good that you really ought to think about not doing this much longer. Who knows? Maybe you have a future in the movies yourself’.”

Just a few days earlier, DiBella had concluded negotiations with manager Craig Hamilton for a March 12th Duddy fight against Andy Lee at the Foxwoods casino in Connecticut. The St Patrick’s week bout on the Mashantucket Pequod tribal reservation would be the co-feature of a card headlined by Sergio Martinez’ middleweight title defence against Ukrainian Sergey Dzinzyrik.

Making the fight had been an arduous process, and in the end DiBella had to strong-arm HBO into televising the bout only by mortgaging future Martinez bouts as collateral, which in turn provided $100,000 guarantees for the two Irish middleweights.

DiBella was unaware at the time that Duddy had already taped a yet-to-be aired episode of Lights Out, the FX channel’s new boxing-themed series, but he was about to find out. The Lights Out premiere took place on January 5th. Ten days later Duddy stunned the boxing world by announcing his retirement.

“I wish I still had the hunger, but I don’t,” said Duddy in the January 15th statement released by Hamilton. “The fire has burned out.”

Ten days after that came the news Duddy would make his theatrical debut in an Off-Broadway revival of Bobby Cassidy Jnr’s 2007 play Kid Shamrock. The seemingly precipitate haste of the second announcement led many to suspect the two events must have been connected, but Duddy insists this was not the case.

“Just a couple of days after I announced my retirement I got a phone call from Séamus McDonagh asking if I’d be interested in the play,” said Duddy, who portrays the younger, fighting-era version of the eponymous lead character, plainly based on the playwright’s father, Bobby Cassidy, a useful middleweight and light-heavyweight of the 1960s and 70s. (McDonagh plays the older Shamrock, recounting the events depicted from the vantage point of a saloon bouncer years later.)

“My initial reaction was that I was pissed off,” said DiBella. “I’d had to fight tooth and nail to make the Lee fight, and I’d gotten both boxers exactly what they’d asked for. I felt betrayed.

“But when I thought about it, and it didn’t take very long, I realised that he was right. If he felt the way he did, Duddy should have retired. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to go through the motions and take $100,000 of my money for just showing up. Instead he did the honourable thing.”

After Duddy’s departure, DiBella secured the services of unbeaten, Edinburgh-born Craig McEwan as Lee’s opponent in the HBO fight. And Duddy went straight into rehearsals with Dublin-born director Jimmy Smallhorne for Kid Shamrock.

Like Duddy and McDonagh (who two decades ago fought Evander Holyfield for the US heavyweight title), every member of the seven-man cast had some boxing connection, guaranteeing the presence of the Fight Mob for the seven-night run at the Atlantic.

It’s a fair bet at least half of Tuesday’s opening-night audience was there to see Duddy, and that many of them showed up expecting to see him fall flat on his face in his theatrical debut. If so, they were disappointed.

You might not say Duddy stole the show (Patrick Joseph Connolly, the veteran character actor who plays an inebriated salesman whose barroom conversation serves as a foil for the older Kid Shamrock’s reminiscences, did that), but he was almost astonishingly competent, delivering his lines (in a New York accent) with a flawless ease.

The boxing scenes, most them based on Cassidy pere’s 1971 Madison Square Garden fight against future middleweight champion Rodrigo Valdez, may well be the best-choreographed fight action ever seen on a New York stage, on or off-Broadway.

And casting ex-pugs in every role might have seemed a gamble, but it paid dividends in verisimilitude: Gary Hope, the onetime English cruiserweight who plays the Kid’s cornerman, Paddy Flood, is believable because he acts like a boxing trainer.

And Wayne Kelly certainly knows how to act like a referee. In fact, Kelly’s understudy had to work the second night’s performance of Kid Shamrock. Unaware of the potential conflict with the Atlantic Theatre Company, the New York State Athletic Commission assigned Kelly to work DiBella’s real-life Broadway boxing card at BB King’s blues club last night.

While confessing to a case of opening-night jitters, Duddy seemed gratified by his reception and was looking forward to the rest of the run, as well as to what now looms as a second career.

Not that he’s turned his back entirely on his former pursuit.

“I’m going up to Connecticut to watch next month’s fight, and I’m actually looking forward to it,” he said. “I like Andy Lee’s chances against the Scotsman for a couple of reasons. Because they’re both southpaws, McEwan won’t be able to run the way he might against an orthodox boxer. He’ll have to stand and fight, and Andy has more of a punch than McEwan does; he hits harder.

“You know, I’ve enjoyed this even more than I thought I would,” added Duddy as he towelled off after his first turn before the footlights. “I don’t know what the future holds, but of course I’d like to do more of it.”

What comes next? “Have your people talk to my people?”
:thumbsup

 

Lads anyone know what thew crak is with Setanta they seem to be gone off the boil regards the boxing aswel as RTE, Carlos is on Sky next month and they are not showing next weeks fight Hennessy card which Premier are showing , they didnt show the McIntosh fight either if this keeps up im getting rid 17 euro a month and all we get is WSB its bad form after a good few months , what I cant understand is at the start of premier they were showing everything Setanta were showing regards boxing now there is nothing on Setanta , CANTONA if your reading whats going on ???

 

Craig fights out of my local gym, St Pauls in Waterford. Handy southpaw boxer and when he is on form he would give anyway a decent scrap, bit inconsistent unfortunately.

 

Delighted for Duddy, always believed there was a second career for him outside of the ring.

While were on the topic of the arts my second composition for the eurovision/manchester outing goes like this

Money money money,
is it funny,
in your daddy's world.

Khaaaaaaaa, aaaaaaaaagh, aaaaannn.

all the things you could do,
if your money grabbing daddy,
wasn't in your world.

 

:rofl:rofl:rofl