Jay Byrne v Paddy Gallagher title fight announced
Following two major cancellations, the Belfast BoxNation show is continuing to rebuild and has today been bolstered by a big all-Irish title fight.
Dublin welterweight Jay Byrne [7(2)-5(1)] will put his BUI Celtic title on the line at the Titanic Exhibition Centre on Friday October 5th versus the returning Paddy Gallagher [13(8)-4(0)].
The fight was confirmed today, with Byrne being set to defend his title for the first time since winning it via a sensational knockout of Crank Whitehouse last December.
Since defeating Whitehouse, Byrne has been campaigning at light middleweight in the absence of any viable and willing Irish title opponents at welterweight.
The Loughlinstown 31-year-old was outpointed by Craig O’Brien for the Irish 154lbs title and, following a win over Jamesy Gorman, was outpointed by Scot Paul Kean for the BUI Celtic light middleweight belt.
Byrne was due to fight Marc Kerr in Glasgow this Friday night for the BBBoC Celtic light middleweight title but this bout fell through after his opponent was injured in training camp.
Facing Gallagher was put to Byrne recently by Irish-Boxing.com and ‘The Negotiator’ was keen on the match-up.
READ: Jay Byrne open to Paddy Gallagher title clash
The Belfast 29-year-old is making his return, rapidly, from a broken jaw suffered during the summer.
Lenadoon’s Gallagher had been set to face recent World and upcoming British title challenger Gary Corcoran but was forced to pull out after having his jaw broken in two places during one of his final spars.
Thus, this will be Gallagher’s first fight since his agonising split-decision loss to Brad Solomon in the quarter-finals of the WBC Jose Suliaman Invitational.
‘The Pat Man’ will be looking to kick-start his 2018 following a good 2017 that saw him score stoppage wins over Scots Craig Kelly and Gary Murray.
The card, which has seen Sean Turner v David Price and Declan Geraghty v Marco McCullough fall through, will also feature a WBO European super bantamweight title fight between Tyrone McCullagh and Josh Kennedy as well as appearances from Gary Cully, Conrad Cummings, Steven Ward, Nathaniel May, Sean McComb, Steven Donnelly, McCullough and Price.
