BOXING: Buffalo, upstate New York, on October 2nd last year and Bernard Dunne was weighing in for his third professional fight, against Tony Espinoza. The contest was a 17,000 sell out with coast-to-coast television coverage. Dunne was to be presented to the US as a credible Irish fighter in a featherweight division dominated in the US by Hispanic and Central American boxers.
Sugar Ray Leonard had recently signed Dunne on a three-year deal - eight fights the first year, seven the second year and six in the third. He was being groomed as a world champion.
Filling in forms on one side of the packed room before stepping on the scales, the 22-year-old heard a commotion. "I thought to myself 'Jaysus there's something strange here'," Dunne recalls. "I thought there was something wrong with my opponent. I heard them saying 'we'll have to get someone else, this kid has to box.' Then Bjorn came over to me, Bjorn Rebney, Ray's partner. 'There's a problem', he said."
Dunne had completed an MRI scan in Buffalo two days before the weigh-in but it only became apparent to the fighter at the weigh-in stage of the fight. New York State Athletic Commission neurologist Barry Jordan wasn't happy with Dunne's scans.
"The doctor just said that in his professional opinion he wasn't happy with this scan. He said he thought he could see something, but wasn't sure. He said 'I want you to re-do the test and I also want you to do this test and this test and this test'," says Dunne.
"It was a nightmare, basically. I was walking around in a cloud, not taking it in. I was more worried about the people coming over. I was worried about my da coming over, friends coming over, other family members. It was an eight-hour drive from New York to Buffalo, how was I going to tell my mum and dad I'm not boxing. I mean the venue was made for me. There were 17,000. Unreal.
"Bjorn said we could get the top tests done that evening. Then Brian Peters (manager) came in. Brian said 'no, he's not doing a test. He said 'we'll do a test when he's ready.' I could have been doing physicals for four, five hours and not getting to bed until three or four in the morning and maybe not getting the results until an hour before I was due to fight. Brian didn't want the same situation as Wayne (McCullough). Wayne took two and a half years. I took two and a half months.
"So I repeated the MRI and did a PET scan, the top scan you can do. They injected me with radioactive sugar and strapped me to a machine for two hours. I couldn't move. Tell you the truth, I was more worried about my mother and father. The way some of the press put it across was one more dig could have put me in a wheelchair, could have killed me."
They call him Ben Dunne in the US. He chose Ben because when Americans announce his name before fights, they pronounce it Ber-Nard. "That Ber-Nard pronunciation used to do my head in," says Dunne.
The 22-year-old can punch and according to trainer Freddie Roach, who trained Steve Collins and is rumoured to be taking on Mike Tyson, "he sees very well in the ring." Dunne can slip punches well and he can hurt. He has already hurt world champions in sparring and has taken on Johnny Tapia, Willie Jorrin, Gerry Penalosa and Manny Pacquaio in Roach's famous Wild Card gym in Santa Monica, California where he is now based.
Those abilities will be tested tonight in Oklahoma when he steps under the ropes against Simon Martinez (2-1-1). The fight comes just two weeks after his phone rang in the Ster Century cinema complex in the Liffey Valley shopping centre in west Dublin, 10 minutes into the Lord of The Rings. Dunne answered his cell phone. It was Peters.
"I was just talking away to him in the cinema, whispering. I said 'Brian, listen I'm in the pictures, can I call you back later on'. But he says 'look I got a bit of good news. I got this fax. It's from the New York State Athletic Commission. It says 'the boxer Bernard Dunne can fight again'. I went 'f**king great' right there in the middle of the cinema."
On February 7th he fights in Albuquerque and a month later travels to Montreal for a TV show topped by a WBA lightweight title defence by Leonard Dorin against Miguel Callist.
"Ray could have dropped me like a ton of bricks, terminated my contract and he didn't," says Dunne. "It shows they have faith in me. But they've seen what they're getting. They know what they have."
