LAST Christmas I collected shoe boxes and filled them with gifts for the homeless.

IRISH light-middleweight boxer James Moore is confident he can take full advantage of a second shot at the big time when he faces Pawel Wolak at Yankee Stadium tomorrow night.

THE row between the IABA and the Irish Sports Council over the withdrawal of funding for the Irish boxing’s new Chief Executive Officer and Director of High Performance rages on.

THE Irish Amateur Boxing Association (IABA) host their annual awards night at the Louis Fitzgerald Hotel, Dublin on Friday evening.

THERE will be three Irish boxers in action in the quarter-finals of the world championships in Milan this afternoon after Darren O’Neill and Declan Geraghty exited the tournament last night.

JAMES MOORE will get his biggest chance yet to show there is a third US-based Irish boxer with world-title credentials when he tops the bill at Madison Square Garden on March 15.

JAMES MOORE will headline the show labelled “Gaelic Storm” at the Madison Square Garden Theatre on March 15 and Oisín Fagan, has been handed the opportunity to put his disappointment of the USBA title fight behind him with confirmation that he has been included on the bill.

TYSON FUREY will discover this morning if he can contest the Irish National Boxing Championship at the National Stadium.

JAMES Moore returns to the ring tomorrow night ready to kickstart his bid for a light-middleweight title after an almost five-month lay-off.

DARREN SUTHERLAND packed eight months of frustration into five minutes of boxing last night before he stopped Eddie Healy (Portlaoise) midway through the third round of the middleweight semi-final at the National Stadium.

BILLY WALSH won his first national boxing title in City Hall back in 1985 when the championships were staged in Cork as part of the “Cork 800” celebrations where Sugar Ray Leonard was among the celebrities watching him perform.

BILLY WALSH will fulfil a lifetime ambition when he tops the bill in Cork City Hall on February 17.

Irish boxer James Moore has been forced to pull out of a scheduled fight tomorrow night in New York.

NEW world champion John Duddy will have to miss a return date at Madison Square Garden as he recovers from the toughest fight of his career.

BOXING legend, Sugar Ray Leonard, is to visit Ireland in October.

Bernard Dunne gradually wore down American fighter David Martinez to rack up his 21st straight pro win at the National Stadium last night.

THE VERBAL salvo launched by the David Martinez camp during the week was off target, and Martinez himself was the first to admit it when he weighed in alongside Bernard Dunne at the Plaza Hotel in Tallaght last evening in advance of tonight’s super bantamweight showdown at the National Stadium.

DAVID MARTINEZ does not seem to appreciate the enormity of the challenge that lies ahead of him when he takes on Bernard Dunne before his hometown fans at the National Stadium on Saturday night.

BERNARD DUNNE will box for the European super bantamweight title in Dublin next October or November his manager/promoter Brian Peters, confirmed yesterday.

BERNARD DUNNE will box for the European super bantamweight title in Dublin next October or November his manager/promoter Brian Peters confirmed yesterday.

JAMES MOORE will be reaching out to a wider audience when he steps into the ring for his sixth professional fight in New York tonight.

Undefeated Dubliner Bernard Dunne is Italy-bound for his next fight on April 3.

JOHN DUDDY surprised even himself with the manner in which he claimed his first title belt on a boisterous night in New York before 5,000 Irish fight fans.

Unbeaten Derry middleweight John Duddy's next opponent has been confirmed as North Dakota fighter Shelby Pudwill.

Mayo welterweight Henry Coyle is set to turn professional with offers on the table from England, Australia and the USA.

THE five-man Irish boxing team will break camp in Manila today and head for Mianyang City in China for the world boxing championships which get under way on Sunday.

Hard-punching John Duddy chalked up the twelfth win of his pro career overnight in Massachusetts thanks to an impressive first round knockout of Joseph Brady.

Two of Ireland's burgeoning Stateside-based pros, John Duddy and James Moore, will box on the same Mansfield, Massachusetts bill on September 17.

Simon Lewis

Wicklow's James Moore is to make his long-awaited professional debut in New York next month.

ANDY LEE made a triumphant return to the National Stadium when he launched another defence of the national senior middleweight title he won two years ago with a very impressive 19-8 victory over Hugh Joyce (St. Michael's, Athy).

ANDY LEE launches another defence of his national senior middleweight title at the National Stadium tonight, but said yesterday it is going to be no pushover against experienced Athyman, Hugh Joyce (St Michael’s).

LIGHT heavyweight Kenneth Egan got Ireland’s Olympic qualification bid back on track yesterday when he stopped Spaniard Mairo Duro on the 20 point rule 15 seconds into the third round of his opening contest.

THE slim Olympic qualification hopes of Irish heavyweight champion Alan Reynolds were shattered in Gothenburg when he was stopped on the 20 point rule by local star Andreas Gustafsson in the third round of their semi-final bout.

THE Central Council of the IABA have decided to ignore the old sporting adage: “To the victor go the spoils”, and have chosen James Moore, the Arklow welterweight, instead of National Champion Henry Coyle of Mayo, to compete at the last qualifying series of bouts for the Athens Olympics.

JAMES MOORE (Arklow) will have one eye on the European Championships when he goes into action in tonight’s boxing international against Scotland at the National Stadium.

THE three national champions dropped from the High Performance Squad after failing to turn up for the first training session after Christmas will rejoin the squad in the middle of the month, but won’t be going to the European Championships - the first of the Olympic Qualifiers.

WINNING an Adidas Belt at the Box Cup Tournament in Hamburg may not have compensated James Moore for the loss of his national senior crown but the performance, coupled with the defeat of his conqueror, Henry Coyle, in Helsinki over the weekend, has re-ignited his hopes of Olympic qualification.

ANDY LEE took his first step towards Olympic qualification with a fourth round victory over up-and-coming Patrick Murray from the St Matthews club in Ballyfermot to retain his middleweight title at the Star National senior boxing championships finals at the Stadium last night.

Three of Ireland’s finest young boxers emerged with gold in the early hours of this morning in Cork, with Baldoyle’s Conor Ahern, Andrew Murray of Cavan and Neilstown’s Kenneth Egan winning their final bouts of the week.

THERE were four Irish victories at the multi-nations boxing tournament at the Rochestown Park Hotel in Cork last night, as James Moore, Conor Ahern, Andrew Murray and Marvin Lee claimed their places in tomorrow night’s finals.

THE programme may have been curtailed for a variety of circumstances, but last night’s preliminary session of the multi nations boxing tournament at the Rochestown Park Hotel, Cork set up a mouth watering semi-final between the talented young American, Antonio Johnson, and Ireland’s Roy Sheahan.