Irish Boxing

On closer examination the draw for the 64kg has not been overly kind to Dean Walsh in general. He should win his opener against Ismetov of Bulgaria who usually losses when he steps up in class. Bril, Valentino, Maxwell, Cordina are listed as beating him, his best performance was winning a silver at the 2014 European Union championships, but that was held in Bulgaria! The number two seed, who is in Walsh’s side of the draw could be the opponent after that but how Mohamed Aly of Egypt got that seeding is beyond me. Maybe the AIBA confused him with another boxer with a similar name? Aly first has to fight the winner of the bout between the Indian Kumar and Zorrillo from Puerto Rico and he won’t be winning that.
Kumar lost on a split to Phil Sutcliffe back in 2009, won the Commonwealth Gold in 2010 and has a win over Biyarslanov of Canada who is already qualified for Rio. But the jump-out win on his resume is from the 2011 World where he defeated Ray Moylette 19-7. However I fancy his opponent Danieleto Zorrilla to be the man to face Dean for that vital quarter-final spot. If you don’t make that stage, Rio is gone. Zorrilla has recent wins over four of the men already on the way to the Games, Arcon from(Venezuela) , Biyarslaniov, Teixeira from Brazil and Petrauskas from Lithuania. He also defeated the highest ranked fighter at these qualifiers Petrov of the Ukraine. He can be beaten too of course as Teixeira, Arcon, the Cuban Lopez and Masuk from Thailand-who beat him at the Worlds in Doha- have proved. Arcon was the fighter who defeated Walsh 2-1 in Doha so the form suggests very little between the fighters.
If Dean manages to negotiate all this he will likely fight Shavkat Rakhimov from Tajikistan who appears to have had five-all successful-pro fights. Not sure how he is in this, but from his previous amateur fights, it’s a winnable fight, and would probably lead to a semi-final bout with Pat McCormack but this would only be of academic interest as both would have booked their Rio tickets by that stage.
Update, Kumar beat Zorrilla 2-1 weird scoring, 28-29, 28-29 and 30-27!

 

O'Reilly will meet Bandarenka from Belarus first. Should be capable of winning that. Incidently Bandarenka dropped a split to the Azerbaijani in 2014. The Finn is gone beaten by Kamran Shakhsuvarly.

 

Different guy, shouldn't be as good.

 

Darren O'Neill in action to-day, expect him to get us off to a good start-c'mon Darren!

 

Yeah.i agree looked up the opponent,He can punch but is very easy to hit,
Darren will have way too mich boxing for him but i bet it will be a fun fight to watch, :bbb

 

O@Reilly won 30-27. O'Neill up later. O'Reilly's next opponent Narmandakh struggled to beat a moderate Spaniard.

 

Sad to hear that Darren lost.

 

The end of the road comes to us all,i was hoping against sense that he would at least qualify and get a chance at another olympics,
A class act alright inside and outside the ring,
People forget he was beaten in 4 or 5 elite finals before he actually won one,
I hope he retires now as id hate to see him beaten by a young gun that shouldnt lace his boots,a great servant for our sport,

 

Is Luke Keeler still boxing, or even still alive at all?
He used to be a frequent ...and may I say very welcome....contributor on here.
But since his loss (second loss) to Tom Doran he seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. It's understandable he wouldn't be in the best form after his last fight, but he's had time to lick his wounds and with Doran in a high profile big fight with Eubank junior, now is as good a time as any for Luke to end hIs self imposed exile. So Luke, if you are still above ground, let's be having you.........

 

Boxing in US on a Murphy's show at the end of next month

 

Well written-Amen.

 

Well that's good to hear, joe. He could do with a
Lot more fights than he's been getting, that's for sure. As for the lack of posts from him lately, all I'm saying is if Luke has been a bit embarrassed about the loss and if this is what is stopping him from coming on here or anything like that there is no need for him to be.

(Which of us hasn't made a bawls of an opportunity in our lives....myself included.)

 

O'Reilly won again30-27 q/f next.

 

That would be what...7 lads on the plane if he wins his next fight...amazing achievement for a tiny country. To be world leaders in a genuinely global sport is very very hard to achieve......for comparison just look at our soccer team....

 

O Reilly is facing the home favourite Azeri next so i wouldn't get to confident yet. Also the the losing quarter finalists don't go into a box off for the 5th place its given to the fighter who loses to the eventual winner. This is nonsense as in tournaments like this many fighters give walk over's to avoid injury. And im sure the Azeri gets to the final it will be very convienent for him to give e a walk over and allow some useless fighter to go through rather than have to prospect of facing O'Reilly again at the Olympics

You also have to factor in the Cubans also decided to qualify Arlen Lopez through the world championships so the polish kiddlreeoght who isn't as good as O'Reily qualified instead. O'Reilly also got robbed blind in he's box off and got a injury in the last qualifying tournament. If he gets shafted here he should be fuming