Gary Cully points out he didn’t have to lose to learn valuable lessons

Viktor Kotochigov [12(5)-1(0)] was not the only one to learn some valuable lessons from his most recent fight warns Gary Cully[11(5)-0].

The Kazakh has been pointing out that he comes into this weekend’s WBO European ranking title fight with the Kildare fighter a much better fighter thanks to the lessons learnt when suffering defeat to Maxi Hughes.

‘The Diva’ argues he too comes into the fight a more learned and knowledgable fighter after his performance – and points out more importantly he managed to educate himself without losing.

The Naas fighter looked on course to follow up his sensational and explosive Irish title win over Joe Fitzpatrick with a boxing master class victory over Craig Woodruff last time out.

However, a knockdown suffered in the fifth took a degree of gloss off the display and opened the door for some to asks questions.

Upon reflection Cully found the answers he needed – and if the fight wasn’t one that allowed him to make a massive statement it was a valuable learning experience.

Not to mention he took from being able to go face to face with certain non boxing problems and not flinch.

“I took a lot from it, probably more than any other fight so far in my career,” he told Irish-boxing.com.

“I had a couple of issues in the final weeks of preparation, I knew I needed to focus and win at all costs regardless of the situation and that’s what I did.

“I dealt with adversity in the lead-up and there was a big expectation from people for a big performance, as it was the first fight since I won the Irish title and I produced.

“I believe I’m mentally much stronger and learned so much from the lead up to the first time fighting since Covid – testing, bubbling, no fans etc – and obviously learned how to do eight rounds for the first time. I took away a lot more than just ring experience from that last one.”

With all that he has learnt and without distractions in the build-up, the Pete Taylor trained southpaw is predicting a hiccup-less performance this Friday.

“It was good to get the rounds in and go the eight for the first time, and to have someone coming back at me like Craig did, he was a tough customer and I learned a lot from it, but expect a completely different performance on March 12th.”