Dylan McDonagh breaks ‘no call out policy’ to call out Euro title holder Ijaz Ahmed
Dylan McDonagh [4(1)-3(0)] wants to go from bantering to battling Ijaz Ahmed [8(0)-2(0)].
The Tallaght fighter watched Ahmed take ownership of the WBO and IBF European super-flyweight European ranking titles in February and instantly made him a target.
‘The Firecracker’ broke his usually quiet approach to share some lighthearted verbals with ‘Jazzy’ online and let it be known he is up for the fight.
The Birmingham 27-year-old seems open to the clash and speaking to Irish-boxing.com McDonagh called for the ‘craic’ to end and for some serious action to begin.
“I watched the European title fight a few weeks ago between Ijaz Ahmed and Kaisy Khamedi and was immediately on to my manager, Ian Gaughran about getting into position to fight Ahmed,” McDonagh told Irish-boxing.com.
Discussing the online banter and the fact he broke his ‘no call out policy’ the Jobsotwn fighter added: “I had a bit of craic over the last couple of weeks on social media with him – just to get his attention.
“He’s a good lad, to be fair, and took it well.”
In fairness, Ahmed did take the call out well and admitted Irish and Celtic title challenger McDonagh was a viable option.
“He seems interested,” continues the 35-year-old.
“He is having a break for Ramadan before maybe we can sort something.”
The time frame suits McDonagh, who having fought at bantamweight and super bantamweight, would need a win down at super fly to be eligible for the ranking titles.
“That works for me because I need to get back in the ring in the meantime to blow off the cobwebs – get a good win at super -fly and put myself into contention to fight Ahmed.
“That’s all I’m focusing on now and please God it happens.”
The Ian Goughran managed and Jonathan Lewins trained fighter believes if the clash was made it would be an entertaining one he’d win, suggesting his history in the bigger weights would prove vital.
“I reckon we would put on some scrap, and I also reckon I beat him. We’re very similar – come forward, all action, have-a-go fighters.
“But I’ll be too big and too strong for him and will take those belts off him. And that’s not taking anything away from him – he put on a brilliant performance to win the belts. It was a perfect performance actually against the style of fighter Khamedi is. Him and his team got it spot on,” he adds in more familiar McDonagh fashion.
McDonagh hasn’t fought since he defeated Marius Vysniauskas in September of 2019 and admits his time out of the ring has proved frustrating.
Offers have been made at rejected as the Dubliner doesn’t want to be taking risks outside of his desired weight class anymore.
“This past year has been incredibly frustrating – obviously it has been for all Irish fighters.
“There were a couple of offers to fight on shows but they weren’t the right ones – a lot of things like going up in weight etc when I’m looking to go down from super bantam and bantam to super fly.
“As you probably know, I weighed in for the super bantam Irish title fight [against Carl McDonald] almost as a super-fly, not intentionally, but it shows I’m really a natural lighter fighter.
“What that also showed was that I can do damage down there as I’ve been fighting against naturally bigger lads my whole career so it’s time to step on now and have a run at it, at a weight that suits.”
McDonagh is hoping to get back out soon and move closer to that proposed Ahmed clash.
“I’m in great shape, am feeling pretty sharp thru sparring with my teammates and am ready to get back in the ring soon to show that I’m still a contender, and to show Ahmed what he’s dealing with.”
