John Joyce prevails in entertaining all-Irish duel

In one of two all-Irish fights on the card, Lucan welterweight John Joyce overcame Belfast’s Jamesy Gorman on the ‘Celtic Clash 3: Building Champions,’

Giving one of the performances of the night, the Tony Davitt-trained fighter dominated early on against the Antrim journeyman, hurting Gorman on numerous occasionsbefore the Eastside boxer came back strongly.

Joyce went about his business methodically in the first and did what few others have done – hurt ‘The Chin’ Gorman. Catching the Ulsterman with a lovely left hook as he opened up, Gorman was momentarily staggered but managed to cover up before a clash of heads saw Joyce end the round with a very bad cut over his left eye.

With a near carbon copy of the first shot that hurt Gorman, Joyce again stunned the veteran former Northern Irish champion at the start of the second. Gorman came back well as the round progressed, clipping Joyce with a few, but the Irish Army corporal was dominating.

A closer third saw Gorman come back into the bout, landing clipping shots up close, but the greater number of punches were always coming from Joyce.

The best was saved until last, with the fourth round being something special. Joyce landed an overhand right early on that would have flattened most fighters, but Gorman walked through and the pair began to trade toe-to-toe for the near entirety of the round – with both fighters receiving huge applause at the conclusion.

Going to referee Emile Tiedt’s card, the bout was scored 40-36 to Joyce, which was maybe slightly harsh on the game Gordon who made it into a great fight.

The points win sees Joyce improve to 2(1)-0, while Gorman moves to 8(3)-38(5)-1.

Photo Credit: Laszlo Geczo