BACKFLIPS AND GLORY
Louie O’doherty on his journey to making his trademark celebration at Haringey
LOUIE O’DOHERTY is proof the hard way is the best way. The 21-year-old rounded off his season by winning Haringey Box Cup gold at 63.5kgs.
O’doherty had three unanimous points wins to add the gold to the NAC title and Tri Nations silver he previously won this season and puts his success down to the old-school methods of Gordon Charlesworth, head coach at Halstead and Essex University.
“I had my first 12 for Chelmsford and then joined Gordon,” said O’doherty, a robust and heavy-handed box-fighter with a cheery manner.
“He told me from the start: ‘This isn’t going to be easy.’ He only matched me with 30 bouters and that’s where most of the losses (18) on my (58-bout) record come from.
“I learned how to fight these boys and it wasn’t easy. In my first fight for him I got knocked out.
“I went back to the gym a few nights later and Gordon got me sparring (current Great Britain boxer) Lewis Richardson. He beat me up and afterwards Gordon said: ‘Now will you keep your hands up ?’
“His methods aren’t nice. They come to the gym saying they want to box, but not many of them stay. The ones that stay turn out to be good fighters.”
The success stories include Dan Azeez, the current British light-heavyweight champion, and O’doherty made his breakthrough by winning the Eindoven Cup in the Netherlands in 2019.
O’doherty scalped the champions of Ireland (Kenneth Doyle) and Belgium (Karim Saboundji) to win gold – and was slapped around the face by his coach after the final!
“Gordon said: ‘You should have stopped him,’” said O’doherty, who must have a good collection of Fight of the Night trophies at his Braintree home. “He always wants more from me.” That was followed by a run to the final of the Haringey Box Cup. O’doherty admits he struggled to recapture that form after Covid kept the gyms shut.
“That really knocked me back,” he said. “There was no point crying about it because everyone was in the same position.
“It was just a shame it had to happen then and when I came back I was winning one, then losing one . . .”
O’doherty said “everything clicked” in his pre-quarter final win over Jamal Kayani (High Wycombe) in the NACS – second-round stoppage – and he went on to win the title with a gruelling points win over Mitchell Asare (White Hart Lane) in the final in Manchester in April.
“He had beaten me on a split a few months earlier,” remembered O’doherty.
“I beat him in the first round and then he flew at me and I wasn’t prepared for it.
“I knew when I fought him in the final that if he came at me I needed to fight him, push him back and land long shots.”
O’doherty won a hard fight on points and after a competitive points loss to Scottish southpaw Luke Bibby in the Tri Nations final that he feels he would have won with Charlesworth in his corner, he triumphed at Alexandra Palace.
O’doherty says he boxed within himself in wins over Evan Fitzgerald (Dublin City) and Anthony Malanaphy (Erme), jabbing his way to unanimous wins.
“People expect the jab to be just a flick,” he said, “but I want them to know all about it.”
The final was harder. Logan Clouthier (British Columbia) was on a 16-bout winning streak and though O’doherty gave him a standing ‘eight’ count in the opening round, he was told the fight was up for grabs going into the last three minutes.
“Gordon said: ‘Get behind the jab for the first half of the round to make him desperate and then bash him up,’” said O’doherty. “I landed some nice shots on the inside.”
O’doherty celebrated with some gymnastics!
“I did a bit of gymnastics when I was younger and I teach it now,” he said. “When I started winning fights in the Junior Developments I celebrated with a back flip.
“People remember me for my back flips. One of the officials at the NACS told me not to do it, so I didn’t until after the final at Haringey. I knew they couldn’t disqualify me then!”