BOXING NEWS:THERE ARE wise words emblazoned all over the walls of the high performance training centre next door to the National Stadium on Dublin's South Circular Road, strategically placed life lessons visible to all, especially those flat on their backs in the ring.
At this stage of his career WBA super-bantamweight champion Bernard Dunne (29) is unlikely to need too much reminding of the psychology of his chosen profession, his head is as strong as his heart. But they’re all in there, sage advice from his peers, ready to be called upon when needed.
When Kiko Martinez derailed the then European champion’s quest for a world title shot with a devastating first round stoppage in August 2007, the Neilstown fighter chose to live by a mantra attributed in Dublin 8 to European silver medallist Eamon O’Kane and “chase” his dreams rather than “follow” them.
Three quick-fire wins in seven months led to that world title fight against Ricardo Cordoba in March this year. The war that ensued over 11 brutal rounds saw him staring at the ceiling of the O2 Arena twice in the fifth. Victory eventually came from that same “belief” championed on those walls by Olympic gold medallist Michael Carruth.
“I said to you before Cordoba,” he reminded the press yesterday. “I believe. That was the one word I used: ‘Believe’. He admits to being “very close” to not getting up but some choice words from trainer Harry Hawkins and the sight of “mammy” with her head buried in “da’s chest” made his mind up.
“I was dazed for about 20 seconds but, ye know, towards the end of the round I blocked all his shots. And I was back, because I remember I threw a right hook near the end of the fifth where I nearly knocked the referee out. And as I walked past the referee – and you can watch it back on dvd – you can actually see me whisper a joke into the ref’s ear.”
Of course, winning a title is one thing, defending it is an entirely different thing. Cordoba’s a distant memory. Another far-flung fighter will arrive in Dublin on Sunday, a man who has also beaten the Panamanian and who has relentlessly chased his own dream of landing a world title.
Thailand’s Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym (28) – or Prakorb Udomna to his parents – is a “Tasmanian Devil”, according to Dunne, who makes no secret of the fact that he’s going to have to dig deeper than ever before to beat him on September 26th.
His promoter Brian Peters has all but admitted they didn’t really want to face him at all, but it was his time according to the WBA, and few could deny a man with a record of 38 wins and just one defeat – the latter coming on his only trip out of Thailand when he took on Ukraine’s Wladimir Sidorenko for the WBA bantamweight title in Germany in 2006.
“This isn’t a walk in the park because this guy has been sitting in the mandatory position for over 18 months. He’s a phenomenal little Tasmanian Devil, he’s very aggressive with a constant work-rate. It’s going to make for a hell of a fight,” he adds. He believes it so much he claims to be around 30 to 40 per cent fitter than he was for Cordoba. He’s back under the direction of Mike McGurn, whose three-minute sample of what Dunne has been doing with him in the eight weeks since the return to Hawkins’s Belfast gym, left even the spectators breathless yesterday.
“Easy” it ain’t.
“Some of the sessions we’ve been doing are phenomenal. They really are. They make you heave, they’re that type of session,” explains Dunne. “But it’s what you have to do. We sat down pre this training camp and we did say the Cordoba fight was brilliant, it was a great achievement and the level we got to was fantastic. We can’t go to that level again, we’ve got to go beyond it.”
It’s proper preparation all right, but the ring is where it’s won and lost, so how does the man who has achieved his dream keep the guy yet to realise his from taking it all away? Simple really.
“I earned this world title and now it’s about keeping it, and knowing that this guy wants to take it off me is what is driving me on and keeping me focused.”
