Tough breaks for Boston’s bruised and battered fans

He’d won over the judges but Danny O’Connor’s face and entire demeanour seemed more like a swollen tribute to some sort of courageous defeat.

Backstage at the theatre of the MGM Grand in Mashantucket, Connecticut on Saturday evening, the light-welterweight boxer from Framingham, Massachusetts pointed half-heartedly to his bulging left eye and grinned wryly; of course he wasn’t happy with how he’d fought.

His unanimous decision win over veteran Hector Munoz was never going to go any other way. O’Connor is an extremely popular Irish-American working class hero from the western environs of Boston. He is a key component of promoter Lou DiBella’s stable and was a nice draw for a vocal group of fans who may have otherwise not bothered to pay into that evening’s highly anticipated middleweight title fight between Gennardy Golovkin and Matthew Macklin.