SHOWTIME Dublin to get its first pro show in years
DUBLIN will get its first professional show in almost three years next month.
Boxing Ireland Promotions, the company headed by Leonard Gunning, Stephen Sharpe and Dennis Morrison, will stage a show at the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght on November 20.
The card is still only being put together but Dublin welterweight Jake Hanney, Cavan light-middleweight Owen Duffy and 18-year-old Tralee middleweight Liam Walsh are already booked for action.
With shows in Belfast on both November 5 and 13, the news of the Dublin card means that this island will have pro shows over three successive weekends.
The first Belfast bill, a Jamie Conlan one at the Ulster Hall, is a nine fight card that is headlined by unbeaten duo Lewis Crocker and Padraig McCrory in separate tenrounders.
Debut
It also features the home pro debut of undefeated Cork lightmiddleweight Daniel Keating.
Eight nights later, at the Europa Hotel, Mark Dunlop will stage the 21st card of his nine-year promotional career, the ninth at the Great Victoria Street venue.
The show could well be tagged the Night of the Returns as a quartet of fighters will get back to ring action after significant periods of inactivity.
Mathew Fitzsimons will have his first outing in 21 months,Conrad Cummings in 24, Conor Cooke in 25 and Tony Nellins in almost three years.
A now 30-year-old welterweight, Nellins last fought in January 2019 and has an unbeaten record of five wins and a draw.
LIMERICK duo Edward Donovan and Jason Harty will both be in action in Scotland tomorrow night.
The pair, who made successful debuts on the same Frank Warren card in London in March March, have scheduled four-rounders on a Matty McAllister show at the Town Hall in Elgin. No opponents had been named at the time of going to press.
DUBLIN light-welterweight Pierce O’Leary has an important date in London at the end of the month.
O’Leary (21) will put his unbeaten seven-out-of-seven record on the line against Turkish born Siar Ozgul at the famedYork famed York Hall in Bethnal Green on October 29.
A 28-year-old who lives in nearby Hackney, Ozgul has a 15-6 record, with his two most recent appearances being losses to Sean McComb, on points in a ten-rounder in South Kirby in August of last year, and a fourth-round retiremenat to Paddy Donovan in Bolton last February. ON the same night as the National Basketball Arena card,
Belfast cruiserweight Steven StevenWard’s Ward’s delayed British title eliminator will finally take place.
The venue is the Wembley Arena in London and the opponent is Mikael Lawal. Ward has a 13-1 record while Lawal, a 26-year-old locally based Nigerian who is the younger by four years, is 14-0.
FOUR-weight world champion Mikey Garcia will end a lengthy lay-off in California tomorrow.
The now 33-year-old former feather, super-feather, light and light-welterweight titles holder will return with a clash against Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin at Chukchansi Park in Fresno.
Martin, a 28-year-old from Barcelona, has just two losses in 40 bouts.
Garcia, whose lone loss in 41 fights was in an IBF welterweight title challenge to Errol Spence two years ago last March, hasn’t fought since outpointing Jesse Vargas in Frisco in Texas in February of last year.