YOU could tell from a mile away that he’s ready to rumble. Caoimhin Agyarko was straining at the leash yesterday but the hammer-handed Belfast middleweight will have to keep his powder dry until Saturday night.
The Turf Lodge native fights (18-1) Juan Carlos Rubio, his third Mexican opponent on-the-trot, as the chief support to Michael Conlan versus Leigh Wood. He looked in terrific shape at yesterday’s work-out in the Levels Centre in Nottingham and says he senses “a big performance coming up”.
“I don’t believe anyone can stick with me once I let my hands go,” he said.
“You’ll see on Saturday night – I’m dangerous. Once I get into the groove you’ll see a different part of my game. It’s not going to be all-out aggression, you’re going to see the boxer as well and once you see how good I can be as a technical boxer, it’s something special.”
It’s nearly five years ago now that Agyarko was lying in a hospital bed after knife-wielding thugs almost killed him over a soft drink outside a fast food restaurant in Belfast city centre.
Luckily, the blade missed the artery in his neck by millimetres and Agyarko made a full recovery. The physical scar remains but with every passing day ‘Black Thunder’ is leaving the incident further behind him.
“I was an inch from death and I was thinking: ‘Where is my life going? Where is my career going – have I messed everything up here?’” he explained.
“Five years’ down the line, I’ve worked extremely hard, I’ve had the right people around me and I’m reaping the rewards now on a massive card and I’ve been signed by the best promoter (Eddie Hearn) in the world.
“It’s been a long journey to get here and I hit rock-bottom, I’ve been in some dark place but I’ve stayed positive and worked hard.”
Agyarko moved to 10-0 with a brilliant performance last time out against Noe Larios junior and says he has made improvements in the gym since then.
“I tried to impress too much, too early against Larios,” he said.
“We’ve been working in training on not loading up, taking my time to get into a rhythm and letting my hands go rather than throwing single shots. I want to control the centre of the ring better so I learned a lot from the last fight but Rubio is a southpaw, the first one I’ve fought as a pro so it’s another challenge for me and I haven’t had much southpaw sparring because I only took this fight at a week’s notice.
“But it is what it is and I’ll be prepared to be my best on the night. I’m co-main event and walking out there is going to be noisy and a new experience for me, the atmosphere is going to be electric but I feel a big performance coming up and I can’t wait to get in. I’m buzzing, I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in mentally and physically and I’m excited.”
FORMER Dublin U16 midfielder Thomas Carty admits that if his club Scoil Ui Chonaill had had more numbers at senior level he might have stuck to Gaelic Football.
The Clontarf club’s struggles meant a frustrated Carty decided to concentrate on boxing and on Saturday night the Packie Collins-trained heavyweight gets his third pro fight on the undercard of Wood-Conlan at Nottingham Arena.
“I was very serious,” he explains.
“Sometimes we didn’t even have 15 players and you can’t just do a transfer in GAA so I went to boxing. Everything happens for a reason but, who knows, if I had played for a team that took it more seriously… I might still be playing GAA, I mightn’t be here at all.”
After becoming disillusioned with the amateur game (“politics as usual,” he says) gaeilgeoir Carty made his pro debut last year and he takes on fellow novice Michael Boloz on Saturday night.
“Things didn’t go my way with the national team set-up and it left a bitter taste in my mouth,” said the Phibsboro native.
“I opted for the pro ranks, I was training in Celtic Warriors anyway and I got asked into Dereck Chisora’s camp for when he fought Usyk and then I said: ‘This is the direction I want to go’. I trained with Chisora and it was a Matchroom show and I thought: ‘Some day I’ll be on one of these Matchroom shows’. To think that I’m getting my third fight on a Matchroom show… I’m exceeding my own expectations.”
He must have impressed in Chisora’s camp because word quickly spread and he has been involved in training camps with Lawrence Okolie and had sparred Anthony Joshua before he was signed by fellow heavyweight Dillian White.
“It’s crazy,” he says.
“The last two weeks of my life have been mental. I’m ambitious, I want to push the boat as far as I can. I’m not your stereotypical Irish man – I don’t go to the pub every Friday night like my da. I’m ready to fight and my eyes are on Saturday, I’ll get that out of the way and then we can talk about the next fight.”
