EAMONN O’Kane will train with Russian knock-out machine Gennady Golovkin as both prepare for fights at Madison Square Garden, New York on October 17.
O’Kane takes on Tureano Johnson in the chief support in a world title eliminator with the winner meeting the victor of the Golovkin (33-0, 30 kos) versus David Lemieux middleweight unification headline act.
O’Kane is currently training in Big Bear, California along with coach Paddy Fitzpatrick and stablemate George Groves who fights Badou Jack for the WBC World super middleweight title at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas on September 12.
O’Kane’s dad Laurence explained that ‘King Kane’ has already sparred ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley in camp and will return to mix it with ‘GGG’ Golovkin next month.
“Eamonn is coming home in September and Golovkin’s coach Alex Sanchez asked him if he would like to come back,” said Laurence.
“They watched him in sparring and they liked the way he went and said they were prepared to pay his way and look after him so Eamonn said ‘definitely’. Both of them are fighting on the same night so it makes sense for both of them.
“Obviously Golovkin is a class act so it will be good for Eamonn to train and spar with somebody at that level. They’ve been training hard and Eamonn says he’s in good shape at the minute and, let’s be honest Eamonn has to find another level now.”
Laurence explained that there has already been a lot of interest from Irish diaspora in New York who will travel to ‘the Garden’ in numbers to cheer on the Derry fighter.
O’Kane hasn’t fought since he out-pointed Lewis Taylor in Lavey in early May. The home favourite wasn’t at his best last night but, with trademark determination, he found a way to win. Taking on Bahamanian Johnson (18-1) is another step up for him and winning the fight will open up a lot of doors for him.
“The winner will have a lot of options,” Laurence said.
“We’ve had approaches already about boxing the winner of Andy Lee and Billy Joe Saunders (WBO title fight). There have been so many things going on for the last four weeks I don’t know where we’ll end up, but obviously the first thing is we have to do is win this fight.
“It’s a massive fight for Eamonn and Tureano Johnson’s only loss was against Curtis Stevens when he was knocked out in the last round and he was beating him out of sight. Eamonn believes emphatically that he is going to win this fight, he knows that he has to work really hard in training and him and Paddy are working on a plan with particular sparring partners.
“The thing is that Johnson is signed with Golden Boy so we know we won’t get any favours here – everywhere he looks we have to beat him.
“The guy expects to knock Eamonn out but he just might be surprised. That performance in Lavey would not be good enough but Paddy says that Eamonn is technically punching a lot better.
“Even at amateur level Eamonn always seemed to quietly find his way to win. He was never the person that people were writing about every week but he just kept coming along.
“Billy Walsh used to say that Eamonn always lifted himself when the competition was harder. He said he wasn’t surprised when he won the (Commonwealth Games) gold at Delhi. Eamonn will always find that level – he always knows what the opposition has and he’s just going to work harder.
“I think it will be interesting. Fingers crossed it will be an interesting night ahead.”
