By Niall Doran
What a weekend just gone for the sport of boxing! From Ireland to the UK to the USA action was a plenty with mostly expected results with the exception of one.
Starting off on Friday night in California, Irish light welterweight Jamie Kavanagh recorded an impressive 5th round KO win over Salivdor Garcia. This moves Kavanagh to 13-0 as a professional and without doubt is now one Ireland’s brightest professional boxing prospects. He is in a stacked division at light welterweight with some great fighters at the top of it. Hopefully within 12-18 months he will be knocking on the door for a world title shot.
Back in his native home of Ireland, there was a great card on Saturday evening titled ‘The Homecoming’ in Dundalk, Co.Louth. Established middleweight Anthony Fitzgerald improved his record to 14-4 with a solid 6 round points win over Hungarian Laszlo Haaz. Also on the card some excellent prospects who had some great wins, most notably Phil Sutcliffe Jr who started his professional career with an outstanding 1st round tko win.
Over in London at the Wembley Arena all the main fighters in action won against opponents they all really should have been beating anyway. Darren Barker had an impressive fourth round stoppage win over an unheralded Simon Rotolo. George Groves also had a good 3 round stoppage win over a relatively unknown Argentinian. Lee Purdy had a great 9th round tko win over tough Mexican Cosme Rivera on route to his defense of his IBF international title. Also on the bill was Erick ‘The Eagle’ Ochieng who came through a tough battle to win on points over Frederic Serre to improve his record to now 13-1.
But the biggest story in the boxing world this weekend took place in Brooklyn New York when a 48 year old Bernard Hopkins made history again when he won the IBF Light Heavyweight Title by defeating previously unbeaten Tavoris Cloud. In a fight that Hopkins comfortably won on points he now surely will go down as one of the sport’s true legends. How long can he box on for? He said afterward he will try to box until he is 50! Perhaps a unification fight with Nathan Cleverly looms in the not too distant fututre for Bhop.
Bernard ‘The Executioner’ Hopkins, take a bow son, legend!
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