Real Beef – Jono Carroll slams “two-faced” Declan Geraghty ahead of rematch

It’s fight week and Jono Carroll has launched the first verbal attack ahead of his massive rematch with Declan Geraghty on the Mick Conlan homecoming undercard in Belfast.

The Dublin super featherweights do battle at the SSE Odyssey Arena on Saturday night in a repeat of their 2014 Irish Fight of the Year and Carroll [15(2)-0] has reignited the war of words between the two, blasting Geraghty [17(4)-2(1)] for being ‘two-faced’.

‘King Kong’ got under the skin of Geraghty ahead of their first fight, a four-round swing bout at the 3Arena in Dublin, and drew the inner-city Dub into a war. Geraghty was eventually turfed out in the fourth round for a number of rule infringements and the career of Carroll would sky-rocket.

While there have been verbal back-and-forths in the three-an-a-half years since, the immediate aftermath of their first bout saw both give each other respect.

However, rather than the smack talk being pageantry to build the fight and the post-fight respect being the ‘real’ feeling, Carroll claims it is the other way around and that his praise for Geraghty was merely a courtesy.

Carroll explained how “after the first fight went down, Deco leaned over and asked me not to give it loads on social media. The next interview I did [with Irish-Boxing.com], I gave him props for having a chin.”

“I retract that statement. He does not have a chin and I rocked him that night. After that first meeting I granted his request only to hear that two days later he was saying [to Irish-Boxing.com] he was winning.”

READ: Declan Geraghty – “Despite fighting, I was up”

Geraghty’s post-fight interviews angered Carroll and he sees it as a stain on ‘Pretty Boy’s’ character ahead of the all-southpaw rematch in which he puts his IBF Inter-Continental title on the line.

The Finglas-Dunshaughlin fighter outlined how “everyone who watched it knows he wasn’t winning that fight and the situation annoyed me. I’m a man of my word whereas he’s nice as pie to your face then badmouths you on social media. It’s a two-faced thing to do.”

“I always treat people like they treat me. I’m as straightforward as they come. If I don’t like you, I’ll let you know. I’m not the type of person to hide it.”

“If you’re being disrespectful on social media publicly and then private message me nice things it makes no sense to me. I’m an open book on social media.”