BOXING demands absolute effort and maximum sacrifice and when the fights don’t come and the rewards are slow to materialise it is a frustrating game. The toughest of them all.
You don’t play boxing and you can’t cut corners if you want to make progress. Donegal light-middleweight Brett McGinty was probably the busiest Irish boxer on the pro circuit last year but a shoulder injury stalled his career for six long months. He moved to 5-0 with a points win on Saturday night and is anxious to build some momentum.
“I had fought in September and November and I was a week out from a fight I was supposed to have in London in December,” he explained.
“I threw a left hook to the body. It didn’t land awkwardly or any differently to the way I usually land it but whatever happened I ended up tearing two muscles in my shoulder in the rotator cuff.
“Before I got the MRI we were worried I might have needed surgery but thankfully it was alright just from physio rehab. I did three months on it from physio rehab and it’s all good now, thank God I didn’t need the surgery. It was a bad injury but it’s all good now.”
McGinty returned to action on Saturday night and chased Lithuanian journeyman Genadij Krajevskij around the ring at Doncaster Racecourse for four rounds. He was a shutout winners on points and takes the positives from that but the Ricky Hatton-trained fighter from St Johnstone wants to get on with it now.
“It was good to get back and get through the fight with no issues,” he said.
“Hopefully that’s me starting to build a bit of momentum again because I was starting to get going towards the back end of last year and then obviously the injury came and that halted everything.
“It was originally supposed to be a six-rounder but I was late getting on the show and four was all they could give me. At that stage I was glad to be getting out fighting.”
McGinty’s promoter Mick Hennessy is no longer working with Channel 5 but there is talk of a link-up with Sky Sports and McGinty hopes to be back in the ring in July.
“I want to make a bit of progress now and start building momentum because I’ve been pro quite a while and I want to get back to that (momentum),” he said.
“Hopefully that’s what’s around the corner because I want to start getting into 50-50/60-40 fights, I want to be in interesting fights and not in with journeymen. It’s one thing being in with journeymen – you’re expected to win the fight – but you want to be in there with somebody who’s coming to win because it’s easier to find the gaps then. Journeymen are just in there to survive.”
Krajevskij is billed as the ‘Lithuanian Bomber’ but there was no sign of his punching power as he back-peddled from the first bell to the last. He stayed on the back foot, took no chances, went the distance, got with his money and went home happy leaving McGinty frustrated.
“He was in there for one thing and one thing only,” he said.
“I caught him a good left in the first round and left him with a nasty cut. His eye was completely closed after the fourth so it would have been stopped.”
BRETT McGinty’s manager Ricky Hatton has transformed his body for his exhibition bout against Marco Antonio Barrera in Manchester on July 2.
The former world light-welterweight has been inactive for a decade but he returned to training for the face-off against the Mexican legend, a three-weight world champion who called time on his 67-7 career in 2011.
“He’s due to start sparring at the weekend,” McGinty explained.
“I’ll be going over in a couple of weeks and I’ll do a bit of training with him but to be fair he has fairly got the head down and he has shifted some weight and he’s shifted it fast. You could see a complete change in him.
“He went from living the lifestyle that he lived to being in complete fight mode for the last seven weeks. He’s taking it very seriously and he’s doing a full 12-week camp. Nobody knows what Ricky Hatton has left but whatever’s there he’ll get himself in the best shape possible to produce it.”
THE power of Cuba’s Erislandy Lara proved to be too much for Cork’s Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan in Boston on Saturday night.
The 37-year-old Rebel County favourite was given little chance of beating of WBA regular middleweight champion Lara but had no hesitation in taking his first world title fight. Lara proved to be too sharp and he dropped the Celtic Warriors fighter in the fourth round, before the referee stepped in to call a stop to the contest in the eighth.
O’Sullivan earned his shot by mixing in elite company with the likes of Billy Joe Saunders and Chris Eubank Jr and will now take stock after the third defeat in his last six. Meanwhile, Lara, who previously held the WBA (super) light-middleweight title will now chase a fight with Gennady Golovkin, the WBA’s current (super) middleweight champion.
GEORGE Kambosos junior and Devin Haney fight for the undisputed lightweight crown at Marvel Stadium, Melbourne on Saturday night.
Unified champion Kambosos (20-0) and WBC king Haney (27-0) are set to do battle in one of the biggest boxing matches in Australian history and local favourite Kambosos, who dethroned Teofimo Lopez in his native New York last November, is typically confident.
"This is amazing, this is what the sport is about and I made this happen,” he told his opponent at the weekend.
“I chose the biggest fights possible. I took out Teofimo Lopez. Obviously, this guy (Haney)... I was prepared to fight Lomachenko. That was done. He couldn't make it because of the (Ukraine) war. No problem, Devin, wanna step up? And he did, OK, but he was forced into this. He's not my mandatory.
"I could've fought anyone. I could've fought the garbageman outside if I wanted to, but I chose you. You're not my mandatory. I picked you. You're here and everything is a go for Sunday.”
Haney countered: “There's nothing he can do in the ring that's better than me, and I will show it on fight night. I take nothing away from him. I think that he's a good fighter, but I just think I'm on a whole different level.”
