Tommy Coyle boxes next weekend on February 25th but after that, many fight fans are hoping for a part II of the absolute classic that was Tmmy Coyle vs Daniel Brizuela.
Every fight fan, whether they know it or not, has one or a small selection of outstanding fights they hold above all others for their own reasons.
These are often classic wars the calibre of Ali/Frazier, Gatti/Ward, Morales/Barrera.
Legendary nights all with huge ramifications for the combatants and the sport as a whole.
As a British boxing fan, however, in my twenty four years on this planet I struggle to recall a crazier, up and down shoot-out in a British ring than that of February 22nd, 2014.
At the Ice Arena in Hull the home-town favourite Tommy ‘Boom Boom’ Coyle went to war with Argentinian hard-man Daniel Brizuela for Coyle’s IBF International Lightweight Title.
Tommy Coyle vs Daniel Brizuela was won of the nuttiest fights I can remember.
Safe to say the fight was not what I expected in the slightest – it was so much more.
In a twelve round thriller taken straight from a Rocky movie both men met the canvas FOUR times.
Brizuela catching Coyle’s thunderous rights that make his nickname so appropriate, while Coyle suffered numerous times at the hands of Brizuela’s continuous blows to the body.
Never before have I so often sat back whilst watching a fight and said to myself:
“This one is over. There’s no getting up from that.”
Every time Coyle fell to the canvas his face told a thousand stories: the joint depiction of agony versus determination.
Pain versus desire. The failings of physical flesh versus the soul’s need to persevere.
But he got back up, like an injured soldier clawing his was out of a trench to go back for more.
Every time it looked as though Brizuela had closed the show, Coyle refused to take the count.
Not only that, he brought just as much of an attack straight back to Brizuela in spades, eventually picking up the TKO victory late on in a fight ESPN would go on to nominate for ‘Fight of the Year’ honours.
To this day it’s difficult to imagine for whom the fight had been the more trying: Coyle for taking such immeasurable pain, or Brizuela for having to watch his opponent climb back to his feet times over.
If there’s any young fighters out there that are struggling to comprehend exactly what real drive looks like, they need not look any further than when Tommy Coyle came back from the brink the night of February 22nd, 2014:
