Ryan Greene – “I don’t know what I want now”

If you haven’t already, you should read Gavan Casey’s in-depth interview with Bernard Dunne for Balls.ie

In it Dunne discusses his feelings after ‘that’ win over Ricardo Cordoba, describing how “I wouldn’t say it’s apathy. But you spend however long, it could be your whole life, working towards something. And then you finally get it. Then what? Where do you go from there? What’s next?”

On Saturday night in Belfast there seemed to be something similar – albeit on a much, much smaller scale.

After almost five years away, Lurgan light middleweight Ryan Greene [7(1)-1(1)] made his return to the ring.

The Armagh southpaw had suffered a tough relationship with the sport since his knockout loss to Eamonn O’Kane in the Prizefighter semi finals back in 2012, stepping away from the sport for a period as he struggled to deal with the confidence-shattering defeat.

Now 33, Greene decided to make his return on the Team Wilton/Prospect Boxing show at the Shorts Sports and Social Centre in Belfast on Saturday in an attempt to banish the demons and add some positive boxing memories.

That was indeed what he did, outpointing journeyman Liam Griffiths over four rounds.

Looking back at the win, Greene told Irish-Boxing.com that “I felt good. I hadn’t been training these last two weeks because I tore a muscle in my leg! I’ve had to diet these past two weeks and watch my weight, but apart from that everything’s been fine. My leg felt fine in there, but my timing was a wee bit off.”

“I think I could have put a better performance on, only for that [leg injury]. I was probably only at 80% there, but a win’s a win.”

However, there were no crazy celebrations from the Ulsterman, no tears, no crowd-surfing out of the ring. Indeed it was an understated event and an understated reaction from Green who explained that “it was a bit of a relief, but I don’t know what I want now, I’m still in limbo-land. I’m working full time as well, a lot of hours in the family business. It’s hard when you’ve no sponsors or funding and you’re trying to keep a house running. It’s hard to put in as much effort as you want to [in training].”

“It’s good to get that win out of the way. What I do next? I don’t know. I need to go home and talk to my wife, see what’s best. We’ve been arguing all these last two weeks!”

“I wouldn’t mind getting one more fight, in Lugan maybe because it’s my hometown, but I don’t know.”