Bernard Dunne v Reidar Walstad(free stream Tonight/Today)

Tonight Bernard Dunne defends his European Super-Bantamweight title against Reidar Walstad who beat Dunne in the amateurs .

As usual the fight is being televised on RTE , who as always have a stream for the fight(which can be viewed anywhere) . It'll be available from http://www.rte.ie/sport/boxing/index.html at 21:30(Irish time , which is the same as the UK) .

The stream will be showing all of what is televised so will be including the undercard , which is pretty poor to be honest . Wayne McCullough pulled out as he wasn't 'focused' due to a delay with getting an opponent so the main fight on the undercard is now Neil Sinclair v Francis Jones .

Other fights are Oisin ***an v Chill John , ***an lost a SD to Paul Spadafora recently .

Hungarian/Pole Lukasz Wawrzyczek is also on the card , he seems real quality and will get to at least European level for me , However does seem to seriously lack power though . He's fighting Ciarán Healy .

Some of the other fights on the bill may get highlights of them shown depednding on results but none of the fights left are of real interest .

Wayne McCullough still plans on a comeback and for the first time has challenged Dunne , so if Dunne beats Walstad and then beats his mandatory Kiko Martinez , then that'll probably take place .

3 weeks from tomorrow John Duddy is fighting in Ireland and his fight will also be on RTE so presumely will have a stream too . He's fighting a fairly overmatched opponent for his homecoming though .

Video Interviews with Dunne and Walstad can be seen here :http://www.rte.ie/sport/boxing/2007/0612/dunneb.html .

 

There's no doubt that when Dunne is pushed towards a world title it will be against Molitor . I think Dunne's camp are wary of putting him in with a big hitter like Ponce De Leon or R.Marquez and although Molitor is a fantastic boxer they probably see that as the best chance of a World title . Despite Molitor scoring a few more stoppages of late I'm not completely convinced he really hits that hard now . I think Dunne might be able to use his size advantage to win rounds against Molitor , which is something Michael Hunter wasn't able to do , or rather chose not to do . However Dunne is on a completely different level to Hunter and is much more technically gifted .

If that doesn't work , then Dunne will simply have to out man and out gun him on the inside . Which I think could be a possibility if Dunne can take Molitor's shots well and I think he can .

But anyway Dunne has to get through Walstad , Martinez and McCullough first and that is easier said than done . But if he is to be up to World level it's not only something he should do but he should look good doing it .

If Dunne was to come through those 3 a fight with Molitor could very well happen in the first half of next year . I'd have Molitor a 55/45 favourite at the minute but hopefully Dunne can show improvement in the near future and show he could be a little bit special .

 

Molitor would box his ears off imo , once Ponce De Leon doesn't catch him with a big one he'd win easy imo . All he has is that punch and workrate but he's extremely crude . I think the reason Dunne's camp don't want to go with Ponce De Leon is Dunne could outbox him for 9/10/11 rounds and then bang........Ponce pulls out a big punch and knocks him out .

Martinez was meant to be next but I guess his camp either didn't want the fight now(he is still very inexperienced) or Brian Peters(Dunne's promoter) got dispensation from the EBU for another voluntary first .

I'm aware that Molitor has a tough fight with the South African , but I reckon he'll beat Ndlovu by decision .

 

Wasn't he very lucky to win a decision over Gary Stark jnr ?

Oliver is fighting Cruz Carbajal in an IBF eliminator next month anyway so that should give us an indication of his quality .

 

Just a final reminder , that streaming starts in 8 mins . The main fight won't be on for about another 2 hours .

 

Francis Jones stops Neil Sinclair in 5 . Sinclair was winning the fight but gassed and was finnished off by a shot similar to the one that put Nigel Benn out of the ring against McClellan .

Dunne should be on in 15 mins or so .