When Was Irish Boxing Last As Good As This??

fatgav

So the last few weeks haven't gone to plan, but the fact remains that three Irish boxers have challenged for world titles in the space of a month. I doubt that has ever happened before. On top of this we have the likes of Andy Murray, Matthew Macklin and Andy Lee on the verge of challenging for other titles and then Dean Byrne and Jamie Kavanagh as great prospects.

The amateur lads are bubbling nicely ahead of London and Katie Taylor is one of the best medal shouts for Ireland in any sport for years.

The downer right now is that the economy being in the tank has put paid to shows being promoted here, but when was Irish boxing last as good as we have it now?

moneyman

Let's not forget about perhaps our best boxing prospect in some time, Carl Frampton. There's definitely some talent around these days.

el tel

Around 1985-1988 was amazing -

Hugh Russell British Flyweight champ,
Dave McAuley IBF Flyweight champ,
Barry McGuigan WBA Featherweight Champ.


Then around 1993-1996 was brilliant once again -

Eamonn Loughran WBO Welter Champ,
Wayne McCullough, WBC Bantamweight champ
Sam Storey & Ray Close - both high up the Middleweight divison.

All fantastic boxers. Ireland has always punched above its weight. (Even more so if N.Ireland is taken in isolation )

fatgav

Good shouts El Tel but the strength in depth now IMO is so much better. Plus the amateur scene has rarely been stronger.

magma69

We have no superstars right now but as was mentioned, we have fantastic strength and depth at the moment. None of our challengers won their world titles but they were up against arguably the best champs of the division.

I think Lee will win a world title at some stage against one of the weaker belt holders.

Macklin has an outside chance of knocking out Sturm. I'd give him about 15% chance.

Carl Frampton is the best prospect we have by a long way. If he has a good chin, I'd be shocked if he doesn't go on to win a world title.

Jamie Kavanagh is a very tasty boxer but he is feather fisted so I'm reluctant to get overly excited about him just yet.

I know very little of Declan Trainor but he beat an Aussie who was said to be the next big Australian boxer on his debut. His development should be interesting to watch.

Andy Murray, Dean Byrne, Willie Casey are all good enough to contend at Euro level.

Add this to our terrific amateurs and the future is very bright for Irish boxing. I think we will enter a golden age of boxing of Irish boxing in a few years.

Daroxtar

el tel wrote: »

Then around 1993-1996 was brilliant once again -

Eamonn Loughran WBO Welter Champ,
Wayne McCullough, WBC Bantamweight champ
Sam Storey & Ray Close - both high up the Middleweight divison.

No mention of Steve Collins?:eek:

celtictiger32

fatgav wrote: »

Good shouts El Tel but the strength in depth now IMO is so much better. Plus the amateur scene has rarely been stronger.

im impressed with some of the amateur boxers i think the likes of that high performance set up has a lot to do with that pity other sports couldnt follow suit and do something similar. we are looking good in the pro ranks id love to see some sort of a ranking per country because i reckon we are one of the best countries in the world for boxing considering our size and population.

the one thing that annoys me though is at times like this when we have propspects there, we nearly always have a couple of lads at the same weight who sooner or later will be mentioned as potential opponents. thus forcing one of them to take a back seat.

lefthook84

Daroxtar wrote: »

el tel wrote: »

Then around 1993-1996 was brilliant once again -

Eamonn Loughran WBO Welter Champ,
Wayne McCullough, WBC Bantamweight champ
Sam Storey & Ray Close - both high up the Middleweight divison.

No mention of Steve Collins?:eek:

Also Noel Magee was Commonwealth champ in 1995, he never gets the respect he deserves

Syferus

magma69 wrote: »

We have no superstars right now but as was mentioned, we have fantastic strength and depth at the moment. None of our challengers won their world titles but they were up against arguably the best champs of the division.

I think Lee will win a world title at some stage against one of the weaker belt holders.

Macklin has an outside chance of knocking out Sturm. I'd give him about 15% chance.

Carl Frampton is the best prospect we have by a long way. If he has a good chin, I'd be shocked if he doesn't go on to win a world title.

Jamie Kavanagh is a very tasty boxer but he is feather fisted so I'm reluctant to get overly excited about him just yet.

I know very little of Declan Trainor but he beat an Aussie who was said to be the next big Australian boxer on his debut. His development should be interesting to watch.

Andy Murray, Dean Byrne, Willie Casey are all good enough to contend at Euro level.

Add this to our terrific amateurs and the future is very bright for Irish boxing. I think we will enter a golden age of boxing of Irish boxing in a few years.

Henry Coyle is probably better than all three of them. He can certainly win a European title if he actually wants to. Ray Moylette is another boxer from Mayo that doesn't get much credit but there's very few Irish Youth World Champions and European gold medallists, whatever he does next should be watched very keenly.

barney4001

brian magee has been knocking on the door a few times also

Frankie Lee

Syferus wrote: »

Henry Coyle is probably better than all three of them. He can certainly win a European title if he actually wants to. Ray Moylette is another boxer from Mayo that doesn't get much credit but there's very few Irish Youth World Champions and European gold medallists, whatever he does next should be watched very keenly.

I've seen no evidence that Henry Coyle will ever be good enough to step above national level. Its good to see him putting on successful shoes however.
I wonder would it be viable to have an Irish Title fight against John O'Donnell, Galway versus Mayo and all.

Syferus

Frankie Lee wrote: »

I've seen no evidence that Henry Coyle will ever be good enough to step above national level. Its good to see him putting on successful shoes however.
I wonder would it be viable to have an Irish Title fight against John O'Donnell, Galway versus Mayo and all.

What does that even mean? It sounds like a backhander but it's really not clear in any sense.

Did you even see the Marcelo Rodriguez fight? Rodriguez was nothing special by any means but his fitness was way above anything on the national light-middleweight scene. The sorts of punches Coyle was throwing would have caused a stoppage against any of the national-level fighters within three or four rounds. Coyle is way above that level.

He needs to fight for a serious title to shut up any doubters but it's clear his skill-set would put him very much in the mix at European level.

endswell

Syferus wrote: »

Frankie Lee wrote: »

I've seen no evidence that Henry Coyle will ever be good enough to step above national level. Its good to see him putting on successful shoes however.
I wonder would it be viable to have an Irish Title fight against John O'Donnell, Galway versus Mayo and all.

What does that even mean? It sounds like a backhander but it's really not clear in any sense.

Did you even see the Marcelo Rodriguez fight? Rodriguez was nothing special by any means but his fitness was way above anything on the national light-middleweight scene. The sorts of punches Coyle was throwing would have caused a stoppage against any of the national-level fighters within three or four rounds. Coyle is way above that level.


He needs to fight for a serious title to shut up any doubters but it's clear his skill-set would put him very much in the mix at European level.

He's right to make a bit of money this way first, lucian bute did this so successfully with less talent than many had thought. bernard dunne unfortunately didnt go this route, he could have made a lot more money (but maybe he had more naysayers to prove wrong and rushed it).

Frankie Lee

Syferus wrote: »

What does that even mean? It sounds like a backhander but it's really not clear in any sense.

Did you even see the Marcelo Rodriguez fight? Rodriguez was nothing special by any means but his fitness was way above anything on the national light-middleweight scene. The sorts of punches Coyle was throwing would have caused a stoppage against any of the national-level fighters within three or four rounds. Coyle is way above that level.

He needs to fight for a serious title to shut up any doubters but it's clear his skill-set would put him very much in the mix at European level.

Typo, meant to say shows.

Yeah I seen the fight and Coyle did well but Rodriguez is a nothing fighter who has hardly any wins against boxers with winning records and has been knocked out early against some very average opposition.

Coyle is 29 now and the only decent boxer he has faced is Neil Sinclair so he would want to hurry up if he is ever to compete at European level.
A fight against John O'Donnell or one of the top British light middleweights would tell us a lot about his ability.

endswell

magma69 wrote: »

We have no superstars right now but as was mentioned, we have fantastic strength and depth at the moment. None of our challengers won their world titles but they were up against arguably the best champs of the division.

I think Lee will win a world title at some stage against one of the weaker belt holders.

Macklin has an outside chance of knocking out Sturm. I'd give him about 15% chance.

Carl Frampton is the best prospect we have by a long way. If he has a good chin, I'd be shocked if he doesn't go on to win a world title.

Jamie Kavanagh is a very tasty boxer but he is feather fisted so I'm reluctant to get overly excited about him just yet.

I know very little of Declan Trainor but he beat an Aussie who was said to be the next big Australian boxer on his debut. His development should be interesting to watch.

Andy Murray, Dean Byrne, Willie Casey are all good enough to contend at Euro level.

Add this to our terrific amateurs and the future is very bright for Irish boxing. I think we will enter a golden age of boxing of Irish boxing in a few years.

last time i checked trainor had only 1 fight on his card, not much progress there. maybe not having australian citizenship makes him easy to avoid there (like perez here?)

Big Ears

Syferus wrote: »

What does that even mean? It sounds like a backhander but it's really not clear in any sense.

Did you even see the Marcelo Rodriguez fight? Rodriguez was nothing special by any means but his fitness was way above anything on the national light-middleweight scene. The sorts of punches Coyle was throwing would have caused a stoppage against any of the national-level fighters within three or four rounds. Coyle is way above that level.

He needs to fight for a serious title to shut up any doubters but it's clear his skill-set would put him very much in the mix at European level.

When we're talking national level fighters here are you including Spike O'Sullivan, because although I didn't see Coyle's last fight, based on my previous viewings of both I'd have Spike a heavy favourite if that fight were to happen.

Henry's a decent fighter, there's a reason he upset Moore to win the irish title back as an amateur. But despite the inflated ko record he's not that big a puncher, his defence can be quite open, and if he was in optimum shape he'd probably be fighting down at Welterweight. Unless he showed something he hasn't before as a pro I can't really see any evidence of him being close to good enough to win a European title.

He was chewed up by a past it Neil Sinclair, now Neil was a very good fighter and carried some serious power but even he never won a European title (although he probably was good enough). Now of course Coyle has seemed to improve since then, but by that much ?


I feel bad writing this in a way, Coyle seems to be an absolute gentleman, humble and thankful for the large support he gets. He's seemingly the only fighter worth promoting in the Republic of Ireland at the moment, with his last 2 'title' fights being the only 2 promoted in the 26 counties in the last year. I'd be delighted to be proved wrong by Coyle, unfortunately I think there's little chance I will.

Him vs Spike would be an absolute cracker though.

Syferus

I don't really think you can say where his ceiling is in terms of the European tier until he makes a concerted effort to fight at that level. He certainly looked alot tighter and solid this year than he did last year. He doesn't look it because of his odd body-type but he's in great shape, through twelve rounds he never let up. Even boxing a chump for twelve rounds will drain you if you're not in very good shape.

He's boxing alot more technically these days and from what I've seen there's very few weaknesses in his style or approach. European level is decent, but let's be blunt, you don't need to set the world alight to be in that mix. I certainly could see Coyle beating a good amount of the Euro top ten at super-welter or middleweight, If he were to get those experiences then it's hard to not imagine him improving as a boxer even more.

I obviously like the lad, but I think the whole discussion around Coyle has been masked by a wee bit of the old boxing anoraks sticking their noses in the air at his WBF title (and how it's been promoted) and it's distracted from a boxer that to my eyes is very much on an upward curve. I'm not saying you are because I very much respect your opinions but I think that whole issue has played a role in plenty of people being down on him.