Boxing News round-upPerhaps the hardest fight of his short career to date, Dublin's Bernard Dunne headlines his second bill of the year in the National Stadium when he meets Ukrainian southpaw Yuri Voronin tomorrow night. Unknown in these parts, Voronin is none the less a robust opponent, who holds a ranking of seven in the European Boxing Union's featherweight division.
Dunne has fought tough opponents to date, notably in the US where he was based in Freddie Roach's WildCard gym until his first successful professional fight on Irish soil earlier this year.
While Dunne headlines the programme, two vacant Irish titles at middleweight and light welterweight are also up for grabs. Birmingham-born Matthew Macklin, a keen hurler who has played for Tipperary's Ballingary in his summer visits to Ireland, faces Michael Vaughan for the middleweight belt while unbeaten Dubliner Robbie Murray fights Glaswegian Peter McDonagh for the light welterweight championship.
It is Dunne, however, who will attract most attention as the young former Trinity College fighter makes his way towards what he hopes will be a European title by the end of the year. Dunne has been meticulously preparing, bringing in sparring partners from England to get him more familiar with southpaw opponents. This is only the second southpaw he has faced in his professional career.
"Yeh, we've been preparing for this guy carefully, his style and the fact obviously that he's a southpaw," said Dunne yesterday. "My intention is to make him work hard around me rather than me work around him. You can't really measure how harder he is than the guys I've fought before and I've fought some tough fighters, but I'll give him the same respect as I've given all the others. I've prepared for this as I always do. The same sweat here as in the US. I've no fear of him."
Dunne, who is training in Belfast with Harry Hawkins, fought his last bout in February. The home-coming spectacle went only half the distance when he floored England's Jim Betts with a fierce body punch in the fifth round. Most of his other contests in the US have also been completed before the scheduled time. The unbeaten 25-year-old now has a record of 15-0.
While still too premature to see if Dunne can raise his level to that of Wayne McCullough or Barry McGuigan, he has been impressive and has been openly spoken about as a future champion. "I've stayed in a hotel all week. I haven't been distracted at all," he says. "Boxing is a short career and you have to do the right tings. It's just a small amount of time and it's got to be done. But, yeh, the past few weeks have been hectic. People are now starting to pay attention to me and that's not a bad thing."
After this contest Dunne expects to be busy for the rest of the year. But the Ukrainian 31-year-old's record of 22 wins (16 KO's), three losses and a draw from 26 professional fights suggests the Irishman should be wary. In his only foray outside Eastern Europe, Voronin lost a unanimous decision to South Africa's Mzonke Fana in 2003, but since then has put together a run of eight straight wins.
"After this hopefully I'll be as busy as I can," he said. "Realistically you'd have eight weeks between fights and if I could get in three more before Christmas that would be nice for me. But I'll get past this one first."
The bigger picture, which Dunne does not want to look too closely at just yet, is a fight against England's Nicky Cook for the European title. A win against Voronin would take him and his Irish manager, Brian Peters, significantly closer to that goal.
Once again RTÉ will televise the bout live following strong figures for the February show.
THE BILL: International featherweight: B Dunne (Dublin) v Y Voronin (Ukraine). Irish middleweight championship: M Macklin (Birmingham/Tipperary) v M Monoghan. Light welterweight championship: R Murray (Dublin) v P McDonagh. International light welterweight: D Melville (London/Belfast) v O Milkitas (Lithuainia). International lightweight: A Murray (Cavan) v P Buckley. International super middleweight: T Tolan (Belfast) v M Banbula.
