Tag Archives: boxing

CLARE boxers Paddy O’Donovan and Martin J Mongan met with mixed fortunes in the welterweight and heavyweight finals of the national senior and U/21 championships at the National Stadium in Dublin last Friday night. Welterweight O’Donovan, who boxes out of the Our Lady of Lourdes club in Limerick, prevailed for his tenth national title in as many years with a superb performance against Jason Kyne (Celtic Eagles) while Mongan came up short on a split 3-2 decision, against Dubliner Daniel O’Brien . Mongan, with height and reach advantage over O’Brien, carried all the big shots in the first round and looked as if he might overwhelm his opponent but O’Brien rallied in the second to tie up matters with a series of solid and accurate right-handers. It was ‘ tit for tat’ in the early seconds of the final round. O’Brien took the initiative midway through the round with a good left hook to Mongan’s head and the punch seemed …

“YOU guys should be proud of David Higgins,” comes the endorsement from Joseph Parker, as he praises the promoter with Clare links, who has been with him since he turned professional. Parker looks on the promoter almost as family nowadays. “It started off as promoter-boxer but now that I look at it, he’s like an older brother. The relationship is very strong , we’ve been working together for about five years and he’s made a big difference in terms of my life in boxing and in terms of helping me to achieve the goals I want to achieve. He took a chance in signing me up, not knowing if I was good or not. He’s put a lot of money behind me and into me over the years and now it’s paid off for us all.” When he spoke to The Champion, the WBO heavyweight champion was in Las Vegas, where his trainer Kevin Barry is based. Putting distance between …

MILLIONS of eyeballs will focus on a small rectangle in Cardiff on Saturday night, their owners anticipating a level of drama virtually never found away from live sport. Three of the four major world heavyweight titles are on the line, both fighters are undefeated, both are heroes in their own countries. A genuine sense of occasion and a hair-raising atmosphere will fill the Cardiff arena as the first bell rings and the leather begins to fly. While few here know it, a man with very strong ties to this county is among those who has done most to make the fight happen. Parker’s promoter, the 38-year old Auckland-based David Higgins, spent some of his teenage years in Clare and his mother hails from Newmarket-on-Fergus. Parker has been with Higgins’ company Duco Events since turning professional and one could almost say Higgins is the WBO champion’s creator, having sat down at a whiteboard some years ago and plotted how he might …

Martin Keenan, who won his first Irish title three years ago in the colours of Ennis Boxing Club, hit the headlines on Friday night in the National Stadium when he captured the Irish Elite Super-heavyweight title in style, to etch his name in Clare’s sporting history. It was a big surprise for the unranked, unheralded Ennis lad, who went from strength to strength in these championships and totally upset the odds that were stacked against him from the outset three weeks ago. He is the first Clare fighter to reach the podium since James Clancy won the heavyweight title back in the 1990s for Kilfenora, with Ennis boxing legend Ollie Markham in his corner. Keenan took a 4-1 split decision over Thomas Carty from the Glasnevin club in a torrid battle, after recovering from an indifferent first round, in which he found Carty’s southpaw reach virtually impenetrable. He was off-target with his usually devastating right-hand shots to the head but …

THE angst that boxing coach Paddy Fitzpatrick was putting up with on a personal level, even as he was doing everything possible to get George Groves ready for last Saturday’s WBC world title fight, must have been close to unbearable. As he worked in the gym, his newborn son was thousands of miles away, fighting for his life in a British hospital. While there is still disappointment about last Saturday’s defeat to Badou Jack, he is very much looking at it in a bigger context this week. “I came home last night [Monday] and met my child for the first time; he’s a month old and he was born while I was away. We came close to the fact that I mightn’t even be going to see him because he got very badly ill after two weeks, got taken into hospital and spent eight days there. I didn’t tell George he had been taken into hospital. “He had Strep B …

WHILE boxing coach Paddy Fitzpatrick still says he has the utmost respect for George Groves, he feels he has worked with him for the last time, following his third defeat in a world title fight at the weekend. The first two defeats were to the legendary Carl Froch, the first an extremely controversial stoppage, followed by the famous Wembley grudge match attended by 80,000 and watched by millions on Sky, in which Froch knocked out the challenger with a massive right in the eighth round. Groves regrouped with two victories but his coach feels coming back from last weekend’s defeat to Badou Jack will be the toughest test yet. “He’s had to deal with a fantastic amount of stress and, I tell you what, I tip my hat to him for the way he has dealt with it. When you think of the stress of a man for his first world title in his own country, with 20,000 people booing …

CLARE boxing trainer Paddy Fitzpatrick has told The Clare Champion of his disappointment after his fighter Londoner George Groves lost last weekend’s WBC world title in Las Vegas. Fitzpatrick, now based in England, grew up in Ennis and South East Clare, and he also spoke of his anguish during training in the US, as his new born son was seriously ill in the UK. Such was his discipline that even though he was personally tormented, he never told Groves about his troubles, making sure the big punching super middle weight was fully focused on his third title shot. Now, back home in England, he says that he feels he won’t work with Groves again, having coached him for three world championship challenges, all of them unsuccessful. While he feels that Groves has all the physical and technical attributes that could yet see him take a world title, he feels it will be very difficult for him to recover mentally from …

Kilfenora welterweight Kayleigh McCormack, a recent silver medalist in the Ladies Elite National Boxing Championships, makes a second international appearance against Ukraine on Saturday night. McCormack, who is a second year student in Thurles IT, boxed against Sweden on Saturday week last and although she lost out on points to Agnes Alexiusson, she was outstanding in the final round of a torrid four-round battle. Kayleigh feels the experience garnered against the Swede will bolster her chances against Nila Lupska, the reigning Ukranian welterweight champion. Ennis club coach, Sean Carrig, was a judge in the 2013 European Championships in Budapest and remembers the Ukranian boxing there. He was impressed with her ringcraft and skill but he feels the power-punching Kilfenora girl will push Lupska all the way. The Ukranian team will box in Edenderry and in the National Stadium on this tour, which they are using as a warm-up for the upcoming world championships to be held in Kazakstan in September. …