Irish Boxing

What a disappointment for Sheehan - hopefully his hand will recover in time for the final qualifiers in Athens.
Interesting to note that in the women's rankings on this site Katie Taylor is shown as world No. 1 amateur P4P.

 

It is vital for Duddy to keep moving his head as he attacks Pavlik. If he can slip Pavlik's jab and work his way inside he has a chance to win. He cannot make the same mistake Edison Miranda made by standing stone still in front of Pavlik and trying to trade bombs with him. Pavlik is not fancy or tricky. But what he does he does exceptionally well. He uses his height, reach, jab to maximum effectiveness. He is obviously heavyhanded with excellent punching power. Duddy will have to stay in the pocket so to speak and be willing to trade to some extent to impose his will on the Youngstown slugger. He has to keep moving his head or Pavlik will just bust him up with his jab. Slip the jab, come inside and counter, go to the body, then get out. It will, of course be easier said than done. The point is that Duddy deserves this fight a lot more than Trinidad does. Trinidad did nothing in his last two fights over a period of two years or so against Winky Wright and Roy Jones. Trinidad was a very good fighter but it is Duddy's turn now. The Puerto Rican fans have Cotto now. The Irish-americans need a guy to root for and Duddy's earned it.

 

i agree sardu...duddy needs to..and will be more effective inside...he should not let pavlik spear him from the outside...as the outside is where pavlik is very effective...i thought pavlik fought a great fight on saturday night...yet some of the guys on this site thought pavlik looked ordinary...does anyone have a view on this

 

JT is probably overall a more skilled fighter than Duddy. However, Duddy has certain intangibles that Taylor does not possess. Duddy has a raw-boned, old-school toughness and willingness to get down and dirty in the trenches. Taylor seems to wither or sometimes or even fold completely when under duress. Pavlik could be in for a surprise when the same shots that crumbled Miranda and put Taylor in survival mode only serve to make Duddy fight back harder. I might be biased here but Irish fighters have something that very few others have. Call it the Warrior's Code - which just happens to be the title of a 2005 release by the Boston band "Dropkick Murphys." The cover art shows Micky Ward landing that patented vicious lefthook to the body. Cool cover. Duddy is not Edison Miranda or Taylor - he is an irishman with the warrior's code in his DNA. He will give Pavlik a very rough evening and might just pull off the upset. You'll see.

 

Thanks Ardy! That was pretty cool. I was, by the way, at the final Gatti-Ward fight in AC in the summer of 2003. Seated where? You guessed it! In the middle of a bunch of Italians being very loud and boisterous in their support of Gatti. I am a very reserved person in any event but did manage a fist pump when Ward knocked Gatti down enroute to losing a decision in another incredible fight. Now since irish-americans have all but dropped out of boxing we look to the old country for fighters to root for. Kevin McBride once 'brilliantly' pointed out that: "Peter McNeely was only 1/2 irish - I am all irish." That's right Kev america is a melting pot. I, myself am only about 1/3 Irish, my mother is not irish at all. But my first and last name is irish and I identify myelf as predominately irish-american although I'm also 1/3 Italian and 1/3 German. My point being that my father was very involved in pro irish fundraisers in the late 1960's to early 1970's when we lived in New York. When Sunday Bloody Sunday occurred in 1972 Irish-american catholics were outraged and it galvanized people like my father to get involved in stateside meetings and fundraisers to help to try to make Ireland united.

 

Sardu, I got to trump you by saying I was at Ward Gatti I. What a classic!

 

Awesome. What a fight! I was watching it on HBO. It looked like something from a movie. I could not believe that two men could beat eachother so viciously. Ward retired just in time. Gatti, sadly, probably stuck around too long and might have incurred lasting damage that will surface as he ages. I remember thinking that these two guys are earing every penny they made and much more. What a way to make a living huh? Ward kept his job with the city of Lowell right up until he started making the big money during the last couple years of his career. I believe he said he wanted to keep his medical benefits. Boxing, sadly does not offer medical benefits which it should.

 

I was in some of them fundraisers myself Sardu, by post!

 

I don't want to talk too much about it. My father is old now and the IRA later splintered into different groups and became more extreme in certain respects. In New York, they were hiding some guys, putting them up in apartments, etc. My father was not a practicing catholic anyway - he was just pro-Ireland and was against the tyranny that was occurring on a regular basis.

 

None taken, its a WIDE WORLD, and it takes all kinds:good

Appreciate and respect you're support of you're fighters:yep

 

There is a huge irish diaspora worldwide. There are even some 300,000 people in Argentina who claim to have irish ancestry. Che' Guevara was 1/4 Irish. He was the famous or infamous (depends on your point of view) revolutionary who was Castro's right hand man in Cuba. He was captured and killed in Bolivia in 1967. Che was born in Argentina.