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Prizefighter champ Eamonn O’Kane offers advice to Last Man Standing entrants


The previous man to win an all-Irish knockout tournament has warned the Last Man Standing contestants to focus on outright victory and not how much money they can add to their bank account.

Eamonn O’Kane defeated Anthony Fitzgerald, Ryan Greene and JJ McDonagh to win ‘Prizefighter: All-Irish Middleweights’ at the King’s Hall back in 2012 and is probably best placed to give advice to those who will compete for the €25,000 winners cheque on March 3rd in Dublin.

The Derry man’s first piece of advice is to focus on raising your profile and career chances rather than your injecting funds into your bank balance.

With €1,000 on offer for every knockout and €5,000 being awarded for the fastest stoppage victory, there certainly are incentives to get the job done early.

However, ‘King Kane’, who counts his Prizefighter win as one of the highlights of his career, claims the focus should always remain solely on winning.

“If that’s your focus then sometimes you can get caught out and it could be turned on its head if you’re going for the knockout. I would be more focused on going for the win – that’s what my advice would be to anybody. Focus on the win, not the knockout. If it comes, that’s great, extra money in the bank but the priority is to win the competition,” he told the Belfast Newsletter

The retired fighter has trained alongside Last Man Standing entrants Alfredo Meli [14(3)-0-1] and Sean McGlinchey [2(0)-0] and also suggested the contestants should tweak sparring to imitate the three fight tree round set up.

“My advice is to train every day when you’re sparring like you’re in the competition. The more times you prepare like your in it physically and mentally then the better you cope with the situations on the night. It’s up to your coaches to try and throw spanners in the works to help you deal with different scenarios.

“On the night there are definitely going to be things happening which aren’t the norm. People will be looking to talk to you and interview you and you’re going to have to have the right people around you to help you focus on your job which is to win Last Man Standing. So have the right circle of people around you and replicate the Last Man Standing format as much as possible,” added the Commonwealth Games gold medalist.

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