Draw not Disaster – Coach defends Graham McCormack
Shaun Kelly has warned fight followers against drawing a line through Graham McCromack’s career after his draw in the Red Cow last Friday.
There was a real air of despair after the Limerick light middleweight drew with Octavian Gratii on The Recall card.
The extremely well-supported ‘G Train’s’ trainer, admits he was frustrated with the outcome but called for calm in the immediate aftermath of the fight.
Kelly points out that a draw is not a disaster and that the title options the 37-year-old had going into the bout remain.
“A draw certainly doesn’t finish you. Definitely not,” Kelly tells Irish-boxing.com.
“There is nothing to say he is finished. There was a fight mentioned and it wasn’t that guy [Kieran] Geithins, for a title in the UK, a very winnable fight and I’m sure that fight is still on the cards.
“It could have been worse. The fight could have went against him and then we’d be in big trouble. We’d have nowhere to go from there. It was a draw so we can go again.”
Although they play a part in his frustration, Kelly, who also coaches Jamie Morrissey, Vladimir Belujsky and Dave Ryan, also seems to take comfort in the fact he is aware of what went wrong.
The young trainer was far from happy with the weight cut and suggested there was an element of the team looking past a notoriously tricky away fighter.
“This was part of camp for us, we looked at this fight as a part of camp, nearly like a spar. It’s just the weight got on top of him and he didn’t do it right,” Kelly adds.
“He wanted to jump in get a handy win and go onto a bigger fight but these four rounders are tricky. I hate four rounders. He started very slow, he dropped an awful lot of weight this week just to make the weight. It was all just a bit flat.
“He got a bolloxing from me all week. He done the weight completely wrong. Looking at other fighters they do the weight right, tapering down then fight week is more relaxed rather than having to kill yourself to make the weight. It showed in the ring, he didn’t get firing until the third round.
“We’ve seen Graham finish strong down the stretch before, he’s a notoriously slow starter. I tried to fire him up but it’s just the type of guy he is. I’m sure he’d have won the fight 4-2 if it was over six. We’ve seen some of the best fighters in the world come unstuck in four-round fights.”
