Living the Visualisation – Dennis Hogan has seen his homecoming before
Unlike Katie Taylor, Dennis Hogan knows exactly what music will accompany him to the ring when he fights in Ireland for the first time this week.
Undisputed lightweight world champion, Taylor confirmed she hadn’t given her ring walk music a moment’s thought when speaking to the press ahead of her May 20 homecoming clash with Chantelle Cameron.
The same can’t be said of IBO light middleweight world champion Hogan, he’s lived his homecoming so many times in his mind that he knows what song goes best with the occasion.
In fact, Hogan’s visualised proceedings so often, that he was able to do a playlist trial and error to find a tune that will work best.
“I’ve visualised this night for years. What the crowd will be like, the colour, the noise.
“I even had the music picked out. I put a huge amount of work into visualisation and I always visualised coming into the ring to Puff Daddy’s ‘I’m Coming Home’,” he told The Star.
“But I’ve changed my mind on that. I have a different tune picked out. All will become clear on the night.”
Those who have followed ‘The Hurricane’s’ journey from New South Wales Champion to IBO world titleholder will know he is a strong visualisation advocate. They will also be aware he had no intentions of fighting on Irish soil unless he could walk to the ring with a world title in tow, meaning it’s been a long hard battle to get back, which in turn makes the return extra special.
“It was always the dream, always the goal, to fight in Ireland,” he said.
“There were a few bleak moments along the way but now it’s happening and it’s brilliant. It’s the return of big time boxing to Dublin. I used to go to the Bernard Dunne fights and they were brilliant occasions. It will be great to be part of something like those. My goal was always to win a world title and to come back and defend it in Ireland.”
The only reason the homecoming didn’t happen earlier is because a world title eluded the Australian-based fighter. He came up short in a WBA interim title fight with Jack Culchay and was stopped by Jarmall Charlo up at middleweight.
The Kilcullen should have been planning a Dublin fight night after he fought Jaime Munguia for the WBC strap but was robbed of one of the greatest Irish world title wins of all time.
However, he now believes there was an element of divine intervention and not just bad scoring when it comes to that defeat. Hogan who fights Matchroom’s JJ Metcalfe at the Dublin Docks on Saturday believes his Irish debut comes at the perfect time.
“The fact that it is in the 3Arena, where I watched Bernard Dunne and all of that fight, it just gives it that little bit more.
“I was happy not to come back until I had a title to defend. I had said that the whole time. If you believe in divine timing, it certainly played its part with me, with the way things happened.
“For me to go off on a different promoter’s platform in Australia and get the title shot over there and win it and for this to be the next fight to happen, that is divine timing.”
