McDonagh to return against undefeated prospect on Sky Matchroom card

Paddy McDonagh [11(0)-2(0)]  will fight for the first time since claiming the Irish title over two years ago on a high profile card in England next month.

The Irish light heavyweight champion ends his sabbatical on the eagerly anticipated Bad Blood card, which is topped by an intriguing fight between Robbie Davies Jr and Lewis Ritson.

The younger brother of former Irish super middleweight champion JJ McDonagh will take on John Docherty [6(5)-0] on the October 19th card in Newcastle. 

No doubt the Mullingar fighter is being brought in as a named test for the undefeated 21-year-old.

The 2018 Commonwealth Games bronze medal winner has yet to put a foot wrong in the pro game. The super middleweight has had six straight wins, five of which came via knockout. It has to be noted all those victories came against overmatched opposition – and McDonagh certainly represents a massive step up for the young prospect.

Docherty and his team may think it’s the ideal time for the Scot to get his fellow southpaw. McDonagh was last seen in the ring against Steve Collins Jr in June of 2017. The hope may be the Irish champion is rusty and will off be pace – and thus Docherty has a good chance to register a step up win.

However, McDonagh was two years and a month out of the ring ahead of his Irish title clash with the ‘Wolfhound’ and managed to win that televised fight convincingly. Indeed, ring rust rarely seems to be an issue as the now Steven O’Rourke trained fighter has been victorious after one and two year spells out of the squared circle.

The lead in to such a fight won’t be ideal for the Westmeath fighter, who has seen numerous dates fall through, but history shows he has coped previously – and he will certainly fancy his chances of registering an impressive win on such a massive platform.

His brother JJ upset the Matchroom applecart previously, when he came in at days notice to blast out Jake Ball.

That victory didn’t lead to anything significant straight away, but may have played apart in the older of the boxing brothers getting the chance to fight Chris Eubank Jr.

The Slater Sports fighter was scheduled to fight in March and had the chance to follow in the footsteps of  Carl Frampton, James Tennyson, Paddy Gallagher, Tyrone McCullagh, and Jay Byrne and become an Irish fighters to win the British Boxing Board of Control Celtic title.

However, the proposed clash with Nathan Thorley was cancelled when the Welsh fighter fell ill during fight week.