IN PROFILE PAUL McCLOSKEY: JOHNNY WATTERSONlooks at the career of the elusive Dungiven boxer who tonight faces Britain's Amir Khan with a world title at stake
PAUL McCLOSKEY’S reliance on his strengths when he meets Amir Khan tonight in Manchester has not convinced observers who exchange their money for betting slips. “I’m a slick mover, a thinker. I think my skills can cause him a lot of problems,” said Ireland’s latest world title hope.
The Irish and European light welterweight champion from Dungiven, Co Derry, may be unbeaten in 22 professional outings but to meet the Bolton Olympic silver medallist and current WBA world champion, Khan, in the MEN tonight far exceeds the conquered challenges that have taken the relatively unknown 31-year-old fighter to this tipping point in his career.
There have been few Irish tilts at world title belts in recent years that have not been as much in hope as expectation but so too has the success rate been relatively high.
Bernard Dunne surpassed expectations most recently when he stopped the favoured Ricardo Cordoba with a third knock-down, while Wayne McCullough travelled to Nagoya, Japan in 1995 to take on Yasuei Yakushiji, when few gave him any hopes of returning with the belt.
Steve Collins flew in the face of industry opinion to snatch the WBO super middleweight title from the then undefeated Chris Eubank in Millstreet a decade after one of McCloskey’s heroes, Barry McGuigan, had risen above the prosaic and against the odds to land his world title in Loftus Road, by defeating the then WBA world featherweight champion, Eusebio Pedroza.
In boxing the odds are a telling indicator of how people see the fight falling but they are not infallible and when McCloskey steps through the ropes he will know the numbers have been stacked against him.
Khan, the pin-up boy of British boxing, has taken to hanging out in what has become the equivalent of a swing doctor for professional boxers, LA’s Wild Card gym under the tailored eye of Freddie Roach. It’s where Dunne began his career, where McCullough also sought correction and improvement. Seeking the best southpaws in the business to simulate what McCloskey may throw at him, Khan also travelled to the Philippines to spar with perhaps the best fighter that ever lived, the only world champion who has won in eight weight divisions, Manny Pacquiao, another Wild Card disciple. Perhaps as a statement of respect, Khan is leaving no stone unturned for the visit of the man from Derry.
A boxer since he was six-years-old, McCloskey followed his older brother, Shay, into the local St Canice’s ABC in Dungiven. As is often the case in a tight parish environment, the boxing club was a family interest as his father, Brendan, had also been involved there.
The McCloskeys had a Catholic appetite for sport and Paul’s interest wasn’t bound by the ropes as hurling and Gaelic football played as big a part of his life growing up. Right through his amateur career until the latter part of his teenage years, McCloskey combined GAA sport with his boxing, lining out for St Canice’s, Dungiven, in football and Kevin Lynch’s in hurling.
During a brief but rewarding senior career, he was part of the Dungiven team that won the Derry and Ulster club football championship in 1997, playing alongside Joe Brolly, Brian McGilligan, Kieran McKeever and Geoffrey McGonagle, several of the biggest names in Derry GAA at the time.
“I have some great memories of playing for Dungiven and Kevin Lynch’s. I still attend their matches when I can. I’ve quite a few friends and cousins playing for them,” he says.
McCloskey lined out at corner back for that successful Dungiven team which defeated Castledawson in the 1997 county football final. Despite increasingly demanding boxing commitments he remained on the panel for the subsequent Ulster club campaign that concluded with St Canice’s overcoming Peter Canavan’s Errigal Ciarán in the provincial decider.
After that success the Dungiven surge lost its momentum and they lost by two points in the All-Ireland semi-final to the Connacht champions, Corofin.
“They went on to beat Erin’s Isle from Dublin in the All-Ireland final at Croke Park, so maybe it was a missed opportunity,” he says wistfully.
The tough decision to take the single-minded road arrived when he was 19-years-old and boxing became his life. Three Irish senior boxing titles later, McCloskey had reached the top but in a series of near misses he never made it to an Olympic Games, which as a child was his boxing ambition.
He fought in two Commonwealth Games and made the European Championships in Croatia 2003, where he lost his first bout to the eventual silver medallist. The Athens Games in 2004 then came and passed him by. Three rounds in a Polish qualifying tournament when he won the bronze medal was a measured success but he needed silver for Athens. By then McCloskey was 25-years-old and saw his future in the professional ranks.
The Olympic dream was left behind.
Since then it has been a steady upward curve, although McCloskey has always been something of a home bird, playing many of his earlier career gigs in smaller provincial venues, Lurgan, Newport, Letterkenny. His highlights have been the three fights he’s had in the famous Ulster Hall, where so many decorated Irish fighters worked the ring before him.
The British title arrived in Goresbrook Leisure Centre, Dagenham when he beat Colin Lynes in 2008; the step up to European level came almost a year later with a win over Dean Harrison for the vacant EBU light welterweight belt. Since then he has fought three times and impressively won all three within the distance.
“I had a rather modest upbringing in Dungiven. It’s definitely not the streets of Harlem. Dungiven is a quiet wee town, not much going on there,” he recently told BoxRec.
McCloskey has remained faithful to the town. It’s where he lives and where he is raising his two boys, Cian and Oran, although he has taken up temporary residence in Belfast to be closer to the gym of his trainer, John Breen. When at home his time is spent between training and helping his wife, Emma, manage the McNicholls Eurospar in the town. It’s a family business owned by Emma’s mother and father, Francie and Margaret.
McCloskey is very much the local cottage industry compared to Khan’s global reach. McCloskey manages himself, while Khan is in the care of former world champion Oscar De La Hoya and his Golden Boy Promotions. The Punjabi and Urdu speaking champion’s Pakistani background and his willingness to fight in the US also gives his appeal and profile a broad sweep that reaches far beyond Britain.
The contrasts between the two boxers do not end there. Stylistically, McCloskey is unusually elusive. The way he moves in the ring is reminiscent of the unorthodox former Sheffield-born world champion, Naseem Hamed. McCloskey slips punches with his hands held low. He relies entirely on his reflexes and speed of lateral movement, which are extraordinarily fast and frustrating for his opponents. He can hit off balance and is recognised as an awkward opponent, which is why Khan has made the long trip to Pacquaio’s camp on the other side of the world.
But the Irishman’s physique has never looked like that of a top-ranked professional boxer and it is an aspect of his preparation that Breen, who has trained five World champions, has addressed in recent months. The Dungiven man has never been ripped like the super-fit, 24-year-old Khan but Breen promises a leaner, stronger -looking edition will be on show tonight.
Khan’s weapons are his superb speed, his strength and an ability to throw intermittent but regular flurries of punches. Roach, arguably now the most respected trainer in the world, will add to that physical presence and probably caution him to be less reckless.
The one stain on the champion’s record dates back to 2008. Described then as a “flawed diamond”, Khan was ruthlessly exposed by a first round knock-out at the hands of the violently fast Colombian, Breidis Prescott. That 54-second loss came after 18 straight wins. But in December of last year in Las Vegas, the Briton showed he had moved on. Heading for hospital after a victory, he mumbled through bruises and cuts that discoloured a face rearranged only moments before by Marcos Maidana: “I proved tonight I’ve got a chin.” The tenth round particularly convinced the doubters that his fast blowout by Prescott two years previously and the glass jaw accusations could be consigned to the past.
McCloskey will wish to disprove that and he arrives in Manchester having stopped his five previous opponents. It is refreshing to see a fighter like him, who has worked his way up the old-fashioned way, being rewarded, or, from Khan’s viewpoint hand-picked for elimination. Either way it’s a shot.
Given the disappointments of that club football championship defeat 14 years ago, and his Olympic dream dying, McCloskey is putting everything into this latest massive opportunity.
WBA light-welterweight title fight
Amir Khan v Paul McCloskey, MEN Arena, Live on Primetime from 8pm.
