Tag Archives: Liam Alford

LAST week was a hugely successful one for Shannon Kickboxing Club at the World Kickboxing Association World Championships. The local club took home a number of medals from the championships held in Prestatyn, Wales. Celtan Delaney was a double gold medallist in K1 and Low Kick, while Gráinne Egan also won two golds in Full Contact and Low Kick. Jamie Dobbin took two silvers, for Low Kick and Full Contact, while Luke Flynn won bronze in full contact and silver in low kick kickboxing Also in Prestatyn, Liam Alford made the final of the WKA Emerge Fight Series, a result that saw him pick up a professional K1 contract. Howie Vincent is the driving force behind Shannon Kickboxing Club and he said that while Liam hadn’t won the final, he still enjoyed a very good degree of success. “Liam was fighting in an offshoot of the championships, ina style of fighting that they’re trying to set up a league in. …

LIAM Alford retained his WKA world light welterweight title in Wexford on Saturday night, knocking out French challenger Julien Letellier early on. On Monday Liam said he was “over the moon” with the result, which keeps the door open for a possible future defence in his home town. He said it had been an early knockout, although he hadn’t planned to exert much pressure in the early stages. “It was one minute and fifty seconds of the first round. We didn’t know too much about him, so the plan was to go out, suss him out for the first round, see what he’s got. Then start to capitalise and land some shots. “But I went out in the first round and I could see the opportunity and I was thinking why would I wait? If I feel I can catch him in the first round and get him out of there I may as well! “The plan for the first …

LOCAL kickboxer Liam Alford will defend his WKA World light welterweight title for the first time this Saturday night in Wexford. Liam faces French fighter Julien Letellier as he attempts to retain the title he won last year in the UK. When he spoke to The Clare Champion this week Liam said he was ready to go – “I’m feeling good, I feel sharp, feel ready. Well prepared.” He felt that his training has gone well in recent weeks and left the impression no stone had been left unturn, saying, “You fail to prepare and you prepare to fail. We never fail to prepare.” Liam is in the army, and his training has to take place around his day job. “We train before I go to work, do a bit of training at work depending on what we’re doing, and then there’s a hard session in the evening time. It’s always tough, but I embrace it, I enjoy it, and …

SHANNON’S kickboxing world champion Liam Alford was still relaxing after his victory in a world title unification fight in the UK when he spoke to the Champion last Friday. Five days on from winning the fight against Qasim ‘the dream’ Beg and bringing five world titles home, he admitted to still being a bit dazed by the success. “It hasn’t hit home really, it hasn’t settled in.” While known as a prodigious talent, the 21 year old was seen as a rank outsider when taking on the Brummie champion, but he didn’t care what people thought. “In a lot of people’s eyes, especially over in England, I was the underdog. But to be honest, myself and my team were really confident. We wouldn’t take a fight unless we were confident that we could win it. To be honest we wouldn’t really worry about other people’s opinions, we know that if we train hard we’re capable of anything.” In advance he …

SHANNON kickboxer Liam Alford forced a stoppage of previously undefeated UK fighter Qasim Beg on Sunday in Birmingham taking the IKF, WKO, WRSA, ICO and WKA super lightweight world titles. Liam is trained by Howie Vincent, a huge figure in Shannon kickboxing, who said he was overjoyed with the victory, which he said was an upset comparable to boxing heavyweight Anthony Joshua’s defeat to Andy Ruiz two years ago. “Over the moon! In the kickboxing world it’d be the equivalent of when Anthony Joshua lost to Ruiz, that’s how big it is in the world that we compete in. This lad was 49-0 from amateur to pro, never lost a fight. Absolutely over the moon.” It was a nightmare for the fighter known as ‘The Dream’ and Howie said he had known the upset was very possible. “As I said at press conference over there, we wouldn’t have taken it if we weren’t confident. Yes we knew what we were …

https://soundcloud.com/clarechampion/the-champion-report-episode-7 Check out the latest episode of our podcast, featuring interviews with Liam Alford and Michael Vaughan.