‘Irish Takeover’ Steven Cairns hopes opponent doesn’t fall over early
Steven Cairns [3(2)-0] says he is now 10 times the fighter that impressed in Liverpool last time out.
‘The Irish Takeover’ takes on Belgian Angelo Turco [8(3)-26(5)-2] in the Olympia tomorrow night, fighting for the first time since he stunned Jose Hernandez in April.
The manner of the last victory raised eyebrows, with the 20-year-old taking less than two minutes to take out a durable foe and he predicts eyebrows may go move further skyward after he fights on the undercard of Peter McGrail versus Alexander Espinoza.
Cairns says he has made improvements aplenty since the spring, noting a long camp and some Kid Gallahad sparring have helped him become ’10 times’ the fighter.
“It’s been a long camp,” said Cairns when speaking to The Irish News.
“I was told I’d be fighting in June, then it was July, then it got knocked back to August but it’s finally here. It’s been a long camp but improvements have been made so it’s all good,” he adds before discussing working with Gallahad.
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“It was good working with him. From being in the ring with him I could feel myself getting better. I went in the first time, second time, third time, fourth time… I could feel I was becoming more rounded as a fighter because I knew he wasn’t going to stop coming, he was going to put constant pressure on me.
“So it’s either: sink or deal with it. Once you’ve come through that phase of dealing with that pressure, it makes you so much better as a fighter. You have that confidence in yourself that when some guy is coming at you, you can deal with it. It’s one more thing in my locker.”
The Dave Coldwell trained Cork native goes into this fourth pro outing on the back of two first-round stoppage wins.
The European Schools silver medal winner is hoping the fighter who has only been stopped five times in 26 defeats will have enough about him to take him into the second half of the fight at least.
“The more rounds the merrier,” he said.
“The last one only lasted a minute-and-a-half so I didn’t get much experience from it so hopefully this one goes four or five rounds. The last one (Jose Hernandez), I hit him and he went down and that was it.
“You don’t get paid for over-time but at the same time, you need to get the rounds in for experience – we’re never happy, us boxers!”
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