Peter McDonagh: I’ll Take Skeete Places He’s Never Been And Become A Three Weight Champion

Former three time, two weight Southern Area Champion Peter ‘Connemara Kid’ McDonagh is quietly confident that he will add a fourth title, at a third weight, to his collection this coming Friday, when he takes on unbeaten rising star Bradley Skeete for the vacant Southern Area Welterweight crown, at the Frank Warren promoted ‘Three Lions’ show at York Hall in Bethnal Green.

McDonagh has an established Championship record going right back to the mid-noughties, having won the Southern Area Lightweight title back in 2004 with a close points victory over Jon Honney before going on to secure the Irish Lightweight Crown, with a sensational sixth round stoppage of Michael Gomez, two years later. 

In 2008 McDonagh vacated the Irish crown to unsuccessfully challenge Italian Giuseppe Lauri for his European Union Light Welterweight crown, before out boxing Lee ‘Lights Out’ Purdy to secure his second Southern Area title, this time the Light Welterweight version.

The following year McDonagh unsuccessfully Lenny Daws for the vacant English Light Welterweight title, then shortly after once again facing old foe Lee Purdy, this time for the vacant Southern Area Welterweight title. This time it was Purdy that came away victorious, and at the same time preventing McDonagh from making history by becoming a three weight Champion.

in 2010 McDonagh once again stepped onto the International stage to unsuccessfully challenge France’s Yvan Mendy for the vacant World Boxing Federation Intercontinental Light Welterweight title.

It wouldn’t be until 2011 before the Connemara Kid was back in Championship action, when he unsuccessfully defended his Southern Area Light Welter strap against Darren ‘Mr R&B’ Hamilton

Later in the year Peter took part in the highly successful Prizefighter series, only to draw eventual tournament victor Yassine El Maachi in the quarterfinal.

With just the three outings so far in 2012, won one and lost two, McDonagh is clearly the underdog going into Friday’s fight. However the ever likable Irishman feels that the underdog label may be doing him a big favour, when he spoke briefly following a training session at the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym in Canning Town.

“It’s a very good fight for me, it’s gonna be a tough one, but I love ‘em tough and if I can pull it off I’ll become a three weight Southern Area Champion, which is big in itself.

I’ve had the belt at Lightweight, Light Welterweight and now get a second chance to add the Welterweight belt.

I don’t know if anyone has done that before, but it’s a big opportunity for me and I feel I’m in there with a good chance of making history.

Bradley Skeete’s a good fighter, he’s unbeaten but he’s not been there before, I have and I think that could be the difference.

I’ve had plenty of hard ten and twelve round fights in my career and I’m the upset kid you know and come Friday I’ll take Bradley to places he’s never been to before.

Training here at the TRAD TKO has been great as ever, been getting plenty of great sparring with Jimmy and Mark’s (Tibbs) boys, had some sparring with Kevin (Mitchell) as he prepares for his big fight against  Ricky (Burns) the week after mine and some of their other boys as well as some sessions with Johnny’s (Eames) boys.

Here at the TRAD TKO we have just had a really successful weekend, with Charlie (Hoy), Tom (Baker), Wadi (Camacho) winning their fights, as well as Ian (Bailey) and Danny (Connor) both coming in as underdogs to capture Southern Area titles and Erick (Ochieng) retaining his English title in style.

Now I’ve just got to focus on the 14th September, if I can do a good job on Bradley Skeete then I’ll bring another title back to the gym and  hopefully then I’ll get a British title fight.

I’ve been a pro for eleven years and you know, I think this is my opportunity to go for it and come the 14th September that’s just what I’m gonna do, I’m going for it.”

Peter McDonagh versus Bradley Skeete, for the vacant Southern Area Welterweight title, is the main support bout for TRAD TKO’s Billy Joe Saunders, as he defends his Commonwealth Middleweight Crown against Jarrod Fletcher, at the Frank Warren Promoted ‘Three Lions’ event at York Hall in Bethnal Green on Friday 14th September.

Supporting the two title fights are no less than four further unbeaten boxers from the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym, Frankie Buglioni, Gary Corcoran, Billy Morgan and Ediz Hussein, who are joined by Mitchell Smith and Steve O’Meara, all against yet to be named opponents.

Tickets, priced £40 (Standard seated) and £60 (Ringside) for the Frank Warren promoted Three Lions at York Hall on Friday the 14th of September 2012 are available on-line at www.tkoboxoffice.com or in person from the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym, Gillian House, Stephenson Street, Canning Town, London E16 4SA.

Post Olympics: Women’s Boxing Set To Flourish With Major London Event In 2013

Great Britain's Nicola Adams, Ireland’s Katie Taylor and America’s Claressa Shields may have won Gold at the London 2012 Olympics, however all the Women that took part deserve some of the glory and recognition for the part they played.

Each and every female boxer that took part in this historic event shone brightly, they proved without doubt that Women’s Boxing is just as competitive and exciting as those of their male counterparts.

Things may look rosy at this time, everyone is high on the stunning debut of Women’s Boxing at the Olympics, but just how long will this last before the excitement we all felt, as we watched Nicola, Katie and Claressa fight their way to Gold, becomes just a faded memory.

The natural progression for any of the male boxers taking part in the Olympics is a lucrative promotional deal with Frank Warren, Eddie Hearn or Frank Maloney, however with the British Boxing hierarchy’s attitude towards Women’s Boxing this may not be an avenue open to Nicola Adams, Natasha Jonas and Savannah Marshall, unless that is they fight abroad like the current crop of British female pro Boxers.

British pro Boxer, and coach at the TRAD TKO gym in Canning Town, Marianne Marston may just prove to be the White Knight that Women’s Professional Boxing has been waiting for.

Marianne  - who was discovered by legendary Heavyweight Champion of the World Smokin’ Joe Frazier, and trained by Joe and his son Marvis at their landmark gym in North Philadelphia until it closed in ‘08 - is already well known for her campaigning for the Women’s Boxing cause through the media, as well as encouraging Women into the sport through her highly successful London based Women’s Boxing Classes.

But what a lot of people don’t know is that Marianne  has also been highly active in her attempts to bring a World significant Women’s Boxing event to the UK.

It hasn’t been an easy journey, in mid 2011 Marianne, along with father and daughter promoting team Steve and Olivia Goodwin, proposed an all female event to the BBBofC.

The event, which was to feature three Women’s International Boxing Association (WIBA) Championship bouts, was turned down on the basis that the BBBofC do not recognise the WIBA, or come to that any of the Female Championship Boxing organisations.

Not to be deterred Marianne continued in her quest, and as she explains it finally seems set to happen early in 2013.

“Firstly I have to congratulate Nicola, Katie and Claressa for their winning the first Olympic Women’s Boxing Gold medals.

They all fought brilliantly, they did the sport proud, as did all the girls that took part, now it’s time to truly establish Women’s Boxing here in the UK.

100 years ago they said Women couldn’t be doctors, or lawyers, or vote.

30 years ago they said Women weren’t capable of running a marathon.

This year we have proved everyone wrong who said Women couldn’t box.

Nicola, Katie, Claressa and all the female Boxers at London 2012 have proved to the World that Women can fight just as well as the men, and, just as important that there is an appetite and an audience for Women’s Boxing.

So now we’re coming for all those in the World of Professional Boxing who have tried to stop Women from competing here in the UK. You know who you are, and you have no excuses left.”

With her frustrations well and truly vented Marianne then continued, “After the board (BBBofC) refused to sanction the event in 2011, I had no intention of  giving up, I’m not a quitter.

First I contacted World Boxing Federation President, Howard Goldberg.

I particularly wanted to work with the WBF after noticing on BoxRec that most of the #1 ranked girls, people like Zita Zatyko, Christina Hammer, Anne Sophie Mathis, were all WBF Champions

I then had a chat with promoter Miranda Carter to see if she would be interested in promoting the event.

Miranda’s great, she’s always been a big supporter of  Women’s Boxing and regularly has a female fight on her shows.

Once Howard and Miranda were on board I contacted another big supporter of Women’s Boxing, Bruce Baker, Chairman of the PBPA (Professional Boxing Promoters Association).

I particularly wanted to work with Bruce as I had found out that the Masters titles were originally created for female fighters, so that they could have a domestic title to fight for.

All went well and it was decided to aim for October this year, however after discussions with potential sponsors earlier this year, it soon became clear that we would be better off aiming at early 2013, as many of the companies we approached  said that their current budget had been decimated by the Olympics.

This delay actually may have done us a big favour. The original concept was we would be promoting an all female show headlined by a World title or two, but what we have now is a totally different concept.

Howard is particularly proud that the WBF Female World Champions are highly ranked, most the World #1 of their division,  and those that aren’t #1 are all ranked in the top 5.

Because of this we decided to make this a truly World significant annual event, and created the WBF Women’s World Boxing Championships.

It’s getting quite exciting, we’ve got the website up, facebook and twitter accounts and WBF European coordinator Olaf Schroeder already has the basis of a provisional card in place.

There will be a minimum of four World Championship bouts, supported by a WBF International title fight, an International Masters title fight and two special Challenge Cup bouts.

It’s going be truly international, we’ll have German pair Christina Hammer and Ramona Kuehne, as well as Hungary’s Zita Zatyko defending their World titles.

Maria Lindberg will be challenging for the vacant Light Middle World title, probably against fellow Swede Mikaela Lauren.

We’re also hoping to get Holly Holm versus Anne Sophie Mathis. It would be awesome to host the trilogy fight here in London.

Their first two fights were stormers. Anne Sophie won the first and Holly the second, both were fought in America, but I can’t see why the Americans should get all the good fights, let’s have the decider on neutral ground right here in London.

We have Juliette Winter and New York based Suszannah Warner fighting for the vacant WBF International Flyweight title.

My TRAD TKO gym mate, former World #2 Amateur, Areti Mastrodouka will fight Kristine Shergold for the International Masters Super Featherweight title.  Last time this pair met they bought the house down, it was fight of the night.

We couldn’t put on a show on here without having Angel McKenzie on it, she’s great and has helped me so much since I’ve been back in the UK.

Angel will be fighting one of the special Challenge Cup bouts, and I’ll be fighting for the other.

Going back to the Olympics for a second, It would be great to have at least one of the girls that competed on the show. Obviously we’d really love it to be Nicola, Katie or Claressa, but in all honesty all the girls were brilliant, it would be great to have one or two come and compete at this event as well.

With such a lineup I’m sure we’ll easily fill the ExCel to capacity, just as the girls did during the Olympics, it will be electric, I can’t wait.”

The date for the first World Boxing Federation Women’s World Boxing Championships 2013 is expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

Further information is available at www.womensworldboxingchampionships.com 

or follow at www.facebook.com/WomensWorldBoxingChampionships and  www.twitter.com/WBFWomensBoxing

Good Weekend for the ‘East Enders’ - Part 2 Jimmy Tibbs on Billy Joe Saunde rs Commonwealth Title victory

By: Gianluca (Rio) Di Caro


In part one we had TRAD TKO Boxing Gym head honcho Johnny Eames talking about both the successful Southern Area Lightweight title defense by his charge Ben Murphy and the Frank Warren promoted event at The Royal Albert Hall, headlined by Billy Joe Saunders, which took place on Saturday night and between them featured no less than five of the famous fight factory’s young stars.

Today it’s the turn of legendary coach Jimmy Tibbs, who will be talking about the fights of those boxers trained by him and his son Mark at the TRAD TKO, especially that of new Commonwealth Middleweight Champion Billy Joe Saunders.

“Yeah, it was a very successful night and I’m very pleased at the way all the boys performed, it was very good, yeah.

Billy Joe, it wasn’t a long fight, thirty seconds someone told me, but he was prepared.

Championship fight goes to another level, Billy Joe was really up for it and went out there after the referee’s instruction.

None of them was going to give ground, then all of a sudden out of the blue Billy Joe, who’s a southpaw,  whipped the left hook over the top of the right lead and this started the downfall for the other boy.”

Before turning his attention to the other fights an elated Jimmy proudly said, “We’ve got a few champions in the gym now, it all takes time and we’re all satisfied with what’s happening.

We’ve all trained hard, including the fighters, all the trainers have worked hard, including myself, we’ve all done our part.

There’s an old saying ‘Train Hard, Fight Easy’ and really this should be the motto here, because that’s the attitude of all the trainers and fighters at the TRAD TKO Gym.”

Getting back to his boys and their performances, Jimmy turned his attention to Freddie Turner, “ Freddie was on last, hanging around all night. I’ve had it before with fighters, you can’t help it.

He was a bit lack lustre, he could have been a little more sharper, don’t get me wrong he done more than enough to win. He got a little nick at the end of the fight , which upset him a little bit, but he won easily enough.”

Next topic of conversation was sensational Super Middleweight prospect Frankie Buglioni. Frankie stepped up to a six rounder, even though it was only his fourth pro outing. In his previous bouts Frankie had stopped Sabie Montieth and Paul Morby, both in the first round, and went the distance against super tough Ryan Clark.

“Frankie Buglioni, was another one round job. He just went out there and demolished the kid in just half a round. The kid went down three times and the referee, Richie Davis, a good referee, decided it’s only going one way so he did the right thing and stopped it.

Frankie’s a very, very good prospect, he’s got to be tested yet but I’m sure he’ll come through when it comes, he’s a very good prospect.”

Unfortunately it wasn’t a clean sweep on the night, as former Freddie Roach trained Dean ‘Irish Lightning’ Byrne lost, by a close points decision, to Terry Holmes, much to Jimmy’s  surprise.

“The only disappointment of the night was young Dean Byrne. He was unlucky, it was a good eight round fight, nonstop, the crowd loved it, toe to toe.

I thought our man just nicked it, or they could have give a draw to keep everyone happy. But the referee see different, but what can you do.”

Jimmy then went on to talk about the upcoming Francis and George Warren promoted  BoxAcademy show, which features three of his young charges,  “Now we’re looking forward to Thursday at the Troxy, we have three boys Charlie (Hoy), Gary (Corcoran) and Tom (Baker).

The boys are all looking sharp, they’ll go out to win, they’ve done all the work in the gym now so they are ready.”

WRITER’S NOTE: since the interview was undertaken Francis and George Warren’s Queensberry Promotions ‘BoxAcademy’ event has been canceled.

“Jimmy then spoke of Ben Murphy’s successful Southern Area Lightweight Title defense, which took place at the Camden Centre in Kings Cross

It was a very good night for the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym, besides our boys, Johnny (Eames) and Barry (Smith) were at Kings Cross with Ben (Murphy). They got a good result too, a first round stoppage I heard.

All in all we had a good night, besides Dean, we all had a satisfactory night.”

It may have been a slow start to the new year for the boys from the TRAD TKO but as we head into the Summer it now looks like it’s starting to get busy again. Even though the aforementioned BoxAcademy show has now unfortunately been canceled, various of their fighters are in action over the coming month.

On the 12th May Jimmy and British Welterweight Champion Colin Lynes will head to Sheffield, where Colin will defend his title against former WBC Light Welterweight World Champion Junior Witter.

Just over a week later Johnny Eames, Barry Smith, Derek Grainger, Brian Lawrence and Alec Wilkey will be with their charges, former British Cruiserweight Champion Leon ‘Solid’ Williams, Menay Edwards, Eric Mokonzo, Areti Mastrodovka, Wadi Camacho and Danny Connor, who will all be in action at the Miranda Carter promoted ‘Rolling Thunder’ event at York Hall on Sunday May 20th.

Six days later, on Saturday 26th May, Brian Lawrence and English Light Middleweight Champion Erick ‘The Eagle’ Ochieng will head up the M1 to Nottingham, where young Erick will defend his title for the first time against AA Lowe on the undercard of Matchroom Sport promoted super fight headlined by Carl Froch versus Lucian Bute for the IBF Super Middleweight World Title.

One week later, on Saturday June 2nd, Johnny Eames and Barry Smith will make the much shorter journey to the ExCel, where their charges Mitchell Balker and George Jupp will be in action on Spencer Fearon’s Hard Knocks Boxing Promotions next mega event.

Tickets for both the Miranda Carter promoted ‘Rolling Thunder’ event at York Hall in Bethnal Green on Sunday May 20th and Spencer Fearon’s Hard Knocks Boxing Promotions June 2nd event at the ExCel will be available on-line at www.tkoboxoffice.com shortly. Tickets will also be available direct from the TRAD TKO Boxing Gym, Gillian House, Stephenson Street, Canning Town, London E16 4SA.