Golden boy not Prettyboy next for Foley – ‘Super’ wants Olympic champ before Geraghty

Darragh Foley [18(9)-4(0)-1] has the scalping knife out and is targeting the crown of Top Rank prospect Fazliddin Gaibnazarov [8(5)-1(0)] rather than a domestic dust up with Declan Geraghty [19(4)-5(4)].

Geraghty told Irish-boxing.com last week that he was striding two weights up the scale and wanted to make his light welterweight debut against the Australian based Dub.

Indeed, he revealed he had contacted ‘Super’ with regard the clash.

Speaking to Boxing Bantz this week, Foley confirmed as a fight anyone, anywhere kind of operator he would never knock back the request to duel.

However, he did point out he has bigger fish to fry at present.

‘Super’ had agreed to trade leather with Rio 2016 Olympic gold medal winner Gaibnazarov  in Kazakhstan on March 28 before the current pandemic hit.

He claims that fight is still on the cards and it’s certainly one he wants.

“I think [Geraghty contacted me about fighting on] the Saturday and then on the Monday I got word of fighting the Uzbek gold medalist and that took my full attention. That fight got me made in Kazakhstan,” explained Foley.

“I had one week of training left and fight week, but that fight got postponed over the cornavirus. I am told as soon as this all blows over that fight will go ahead. That is kind of where I am at the moment.”

The Uzbek fighter is relatively high risk low reward in terms of having shown his quality in the amateurs, but not having the kind of record that can massively move Foley up the ladder.

However, the 31-year-old Blanch native isn’t one for doing a risk assessment he is more often than not just keen to fight – up next is a decorated amateur who Top Rank took a shine too and one he feels he can upset.

“Hopefully, I go over there and shock the world against this gold medalist. He is definitely beatable and I reckon I can go over there and beat him.”

Regarding Geragthy, Foley remains open to it and may look at it further down the line.

He claims it’s ‘ballsy’ of his fellow Dub to look for him as his first light welter foe and advises a few feel the weigh out fights would prove beneficial.

“I told him I am up for any fight, but obviously it’s got to make sense. This is prizefighting not pride fighting. If it makes sense money wise obviously we’ll get it on, everyone knows I don’t shy away from fights,” he adds

“If I was going to put my managers hat on I’d say take a fight or two at the weight, you jumping up, see how you handle the weight. It’s a ballsy move by him and we will see how it plays out in the future.”

Foley also revealed, Geraghty, who was last seen being stopped in dramatic fashion by Archie Sharp, was serious about stepping straight in with a bigger boxer and bigger puncher.

“Declan sent me a message saying he was moving up to 140lbs and thought the two of us would be a good fight. I was shocked because last time I seen Declan he was a few weight divisions below, so he was never really on my radar.

“He must have put a good bit of thought into because he was saying ‘we could do it for an Irish title’, ‘it would be in Belfast’ and was just short of saying what purse I was going to get. “