“I’m on the Verge of Something Massive” – Opportunity Knocks for Knockout Loving Padraig McCrory
Padraig McCrory [12(6)-0] believes he is on the verge of ‘something massive’ after his impressive Feile win.
‘The Hammer’ registered one of the most popular victories of the night becoming the first man to stop Russian upsetter Sergei Gorokhov much to the delight of the thousands in attendance.
As well as pleasing his strong support, the win earned the 33-year-old the IBF International ranking title, a strap he believes will open doors previously closed.
The 33-year-old predicts he will now have the profile, the ranking and a trinket that will mean he brings as much reward as risk to the table.
“It’s an unbelievable win for me,” he told Irish-boxing.com after the win.
“I’m 33 now, I feel 23, but I know time is not on my side and that win puts me up in the rankings. I’m on the verge of something massive now.
“I didn’t get the [David] Lemieux because I wasn’t known enough or didn’t bring anything to the table, but now I am and now I do.”
Names like Jack Cullen have been fired into the rumour mill as has an Ulster Hall top of the bill domestic bout. However, McCrory moves forward leaving his future in the hands of his team, although there is a little bit more excitement as to what might be next.
“As I keep saying I hope the next fight is the right fight for me. I have always said I’m riding the wave and now I have a bargaining chip so things are looking more positive.”
The magnitude of the win was evident in the celebrations, although it did take a minute to hit the super middleweight.
“I was standing in the corner and it just hit me, it’s over, I’m now champion, then I saw everybody screaming and I lost it a bit.”
The elation was in stark contrast to the concern and worry that the Dee Walsh trained 168lb fighter had early Friday morning.
McCrory explained he struggled with doubts until he arrived in the arena: ” I was doubting myself this morning. I can be a slight pessimist so I can have doubts but I knew I trained hard for this fight and sparring went well, so once I got here I knew I was ready. In the house this morning I was asking myself ‘why do we do this to ourselves. I’m going to fight some mad Russian in front of thousands’. But again I trained so hard so once I arrived I was ok.”
The BUI Celtic title winner won the fight thanks in particular to a vicious uppercut, a shot that brought around the Russian’s early demise, and a shot McCrory had been working on.
“The uppercut opened his nose and it was the uppercut that dropped him. It was a shot myself and Dee were working on, we had three or four shots we knew were going to work and in fairness that one did.
“Early on we knew he was going to try to stick it on me, so I was jabbing, I got that working, touch solid, touch solid, then you can bring other shots in,” the former Irish-boxing.com Knockout of the Year winner adds before revealing he would have loved to if Gorokhov had of been stopped by the eye-catching shot that dropped him.
“When he went down I wasn’t sure he would get up again. I was hoping he’d stay down, he was hurt and I would have loved a clean knockout, but it’s a massive fight so I’ll take the win.”
