Luke Keeler happy to learn much-needed knockout lesson

Rather than feel too disappointed about his second round rematch loss to Tom Doran, Luke Keeler takes an entirely different view – if he hadn’t knocked me out, someone else would have.

Keeler came agonisingly close to victory in April, knocking the Welsh middleweight down in the first before being hurt and eventually stopped himself as he recklessly poured forward.

The Ballyfermot banger is glad for the experience however ahead of his return to the ring next month on the Red Corner ‘Inception’ show at the National Stadium on November 5th where he will box for the BUI Celtic Warrior belt.

“Had I have won that fight I wouldn’t have learned that lesson, so there’s positives in that,” Keeler told Irish-Boxing.com.

“In the gym I was loading up a lot on pads and in sparring and I was getting away with it.”

“Looking back at it I used to be thinking ‘right I’ll take one and I’ll land so I can get them out of there,’ but it just doesn’t work that way. Getting hurt that way has snapped me out of it.”

“If I didn’t find out that way against Doran, if he had stayed down, I would have found out in the next fight or the next fight.”

“It was something I had to rectify, and I have rectified.”

Explaining how he has changed, Keeler described how “Since that fight [Doran], all I’ve been doing is concentrating on my boxing, I had neglected my boxing.”

“I’ve worked on my jab, I’m just keeping my distance all the time, not rushing in.”

“Sparring has been going well, I’m finding it easy in sparring, working my jab.”

“There’s a couple of times I do go back to my old ways, rush in, and get clipped, and Paschal [Collins, coach] would be telling me straight after.”

“It’s all about keeping the distance, like how Frampton boxes, keep the distance, show the shots, and you’ll find it easy”