Dunne’s biggest pay day all down to Schwarzenegger

BERNARD DUNNE faces the biggest pay day of his professional boxing career to date when he takes on Oscar Villa over four rounds at the Marconi Automotive Museum in Tustin, Los Angeles, on Saturday night.

And the 23-year-old Dubliner will be appearing on the bill at the request of Arnold Schwarzenegger who, along with William Shatner, promotes the charity show which is a sellout at $5,000 a table.

"Arnie is friendly with Sugar Ray Leonard and he took a shine to Ben when he saw him box some time ago and asked if he could have him on the show," his manager Brian Peters said.

"But it means that he will be boxing another four round contest and that is not quite what we had planned.

"He is due to box a six rounder at Riverside, LA, on St Patrick's Day, and the commission won't allow two six rounders so close together."

He said he hoped that Oscar Villa will be able to take him to the fourth round as all his other bouts to date have been over lightning fast.

"Villa's record is not great won four lost nine but he is a durable character and that is why I decided on him," the Dunshaughlin businessman said.

"But I am not so sure he will stay the distance this time.

"Ben is flying right now. Last week he sparred the world lightweight champion Paul Bandafora over six rounds and had no problem. In fact he was absolutely super at the end."

This fight is not being televised but he will go coast-to-coast on St Patrick's Day when he boxes his first six rounder at Riverside, LA.

"We are looking at a number of opponents for that bout as it will be very important that he gets an opponent who will take him outside of the comfort zone," Peters said. "The way he is performing right now, it is difficult to assess just how good he is.

"But his trainer Freddie Roach is very impressed, and he has put an awful lot of boxers through his hands. So much so that he is devoting a lot of time to him.

"In other circumstances a trainer of his stature would be allocating boxers to various assistants, but he is taking a personal interest in Ben.

"In fact, when he was asked recently to return to the Tyson camp one of the reasons he put forward was that he had to look after this Irish kid."

When Roach was with the Tyson camp in the lead up to the most recent fight, Dunne was invited to travel but Peters declined the invitation.

"I did not think it was the right environment at this point," he said. "There would be a lot of distractions and he was quite happy doing what he was doing.

"Having said that, he has become friendly with a lot of the Hollywood crowd and you could say he is travelling first class nice apartment, training full time and wants for nothing. He is enjoying life and responding in the best possible fashion."