Shocked Jono Carroll reacts to surprise Maxi Hughes defeat

A shocked, confused, and disappointed Jono Carroll [18(4)-2(0)-1] has vowed to bounce back from the surprise defeat he suffered last night.

The recent world title challenger went into ‘keep busy’ action with Maxi Hughes and got a lot more than the tick-over that was expected.

The rise-to-the-occasion specialist was outperformed by a fighter he was never meant to struggle against.

Speaking post-fight, ‘King Kong’ appeared to be trying to figure out what had just happened for himself. One of Irish boxing’s greatest talkers was never going to be stuck for words but he did find it hard to articulate what went wrong.

The only real consistencies in the 28-year-old southpaw’s post fight interview was his desire to avoid excuses and to let everyone know he has bouncebackability.

“There were a few little things going on but, at the same time, I’m not one to give excuses for my loss, I’ll take the defeat and I’ll come back stronger,” said Carroll before admitting he was as surprised as anyone by the result.

“I’m just shocked that I had to go out like this. No offence to Maxi, I think he’s a top quality fighter, I just think I’m better at boxing ability and most departments. I thought that was going to easily get me over the line tonight.”

While he didn’t go into full excuse mode, Carroll did flirt with some defeat reasoning. More thinking out loud than looking for a scapegoat, he pointed to a few issues that may have influenced the result.

“Maybe I overlooked Maxi,” he continues before talking himself out of that train of thought.

“I never actually overlook anyone, I didn’t, I worked my arse off. But with all this quarantine stuff, I had to fly in to Ireland, I had to be there – away from my coach. My coach is not here today. There’s loads of little things,” noted Carroll who had father and Ballymun BC amateur coach Vernon in the corner instead of Albert Ayrapetyan.

“I took this fight mainly to keep busy. I didn’t really take this fight… I don’t know… maybe that was the thing, that I wasn’t hungry enough in training. I don’t know. I think I had so many other things in the future, maybe I overlooked him.”

“I’m not even going to give it ‘there was this reason or that reason why I lost’, just my timing wasn’t there tonight. Thought I was in for an easier night than I bleedin’ was. It was a good fight, I enjoyed it.”

“It’s hard to come back from the likes of the Scott Quigg win when I was on top of the bloody world after that fight and everyone’s interested, everyone’s blowing smoke up your behind. It is what it is. “

“Maybe I bought into it too much, I believed in my own hype.

After some thought, Carroll did just give credit to his foe claiming the slicker Hughes found rhythm and range easier than him on the night. He was a lot less confused when it came to where he goes from here.

Having scaled the heights in his last fight, the Dubliner admits it’s a massive setback, but is confident it’s a knockback he can recover from.

“I just try and improve and be the best fighter I can be. Obviously it’s a bump because there were a lot of people interested in me.”

“I’m not happy with that performance and just know I will be back stronger. As we seen when I lost to Farmer, I was back much stronger, this will be no different.”