Hargrove may be first opponent to take Dunne the distance
Dunne is ranked 17th among the European featherweights although he has not yet boxed 12 rounds in total and his manager, Brian Peters, is hoping he may, at last have found someone to take him the distance.
Peters, who has guided the young featherweight’s fortunes with care since he joined the pro-ranks, was left scratching his head after Dunne’s first round demolition of Oscar Rosales in Oklahoma last month.
He really felt he had found somebody, in the hungry young Texan, capable of taking his man the distance.
“This time we may have found the fighter we want,” he said yesterday as he packed his bags for the US.
“Hargrove, aged 27, is a ten round fighter. So far he has had six wins - four by KO - and five losses and all those losses are to ranked opponents.
He lost to Angel Torres on May 2 and I have Torres pencilled in as a possible future opponent.
That fight was stopped in the seventh but it was more through exhaustion than anything else.
“His last three fights have been against America’s top featherweight prospects and went the distance with two of them. That is what I want right now. He oozes confidence.”
Dunne is rated 120th in the world and building steadily on that. In Britain they build reputations in the USA they build fighters and the bright young Dubliner has the best possible construction crew around him.
Managed by Brian Peters, he has Sugar Ray Leonard promoting him and Freddie Roach, a contender himself who has produced several world champions including Steve Collins, will be in his corner at the weekend.
Meanwhile Ireland’s top amateurs are at a training camp in Strasbourg.
They will go into action immediately afterwards in the EU tournament there.
After that they return to training at the NCTC in Limerick before heading off to Bangkok.
The death took place earlier this week of Peter Crotty, one of the legends of Irish boxing.
A native of Dungarvan, he was known as “The Iron Man”.
He won four national senior welterweight titles from 1949 to 1952, the year he represented Ireland at the Helsinki Olympics when John McNally from Belfast won the silver bantamweight medal and he also represented Europe in the Golden Gloves tournament in New York.
In his prime he was one of the biggest draws in the country featuring on bills that included the great Corkman, Tommy Hyde, who preceded him as national senior welterweight champion in 1946.
He had two classic contests with great Cork boxers - Tommy Hyde in Clonmel and Jimmy Desmond in Kilkenny.
On one famous bill at Cork City Hall he boxed Pat McAteer from Birkinhead, uncle of Irish international footballer, Jason McAteer, later to become a British pro champion, alongside several internationals that included Tim O’Sullivan, and Paddy Martin, father of Minister for Health, Micheál Martin, boxing out of The Glen Club, who fought the reigning national junior champion, Ray Donnelly boxing out of the Nemo Club.
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