Chisholm on the up with London deal

BOXING interest will be focused on Bethnal Green over the coming weeks in the build-up to Wayne McCullough’s long-awaited return but another Irishman has been quietly building a new professional career for himself in the area over the past year.

Corkman James Chisholm has already won all four of his professional fights and is set to take another step up in class if a planned fight against Birmingham’s Nicky Cooke materialises.

“That’s the plan at the moment,” said the 22-year-old former Greenmount boxer who has won five national

under-age titles including a national junior title before taking his talents to London.

Just over a year ago he went to London, settled in Bethnal Green area and took up job as fitness manager in the Fitness First Health Club in Southend.

With east London as a base it was inevitable that he would become involved in boxing and, teaching boxing classes.

Danny Hunt, who is doing quite well in professional boxing circles, also works at the club and he did not have much trouble enticing Chisholm along to the Repton club. Once there the Corkman caught the eye of one of boxing’s top manager, Frank Moloney, and before he knew it was handed his first professional fight.

“To be honest I had gone along there to train and maybe pick up one or two professional fights,” he said. “But it came much quicker than I expected and I won my first contest over five rounds.

“After that I was matched with Darren Wilcox from Liverpool and I stopped him in the third round. Then I beat James Lamonde from Glasgow and things were really flying. I found that I was enjoying every moment of it.”

He took a big step up in class last month when he took on Darren Hajyde at Bethnal Green and won convincingly over five rounds.

“The Repton club is the ideal place for a boxer to train,” he says. It is just massive and the facilities are superb. I only went up there with the intention of training with the lads but you cannot but get caught up in the whole

atmosphere that surrounds the place. As a youngster under Eoin Buckley at the Greemount Club in Cork he won five national under-age titles, won the national junior title and represented Ireland twice at the European junior championships.

In all he won in the region of 120 contests before a motorcycle accident forced him to take a break.

“I boxed at lightweight in those days,” he said. “But now I am boxing at light welter and am very strong at that weight. Maybe it is because I had the break but I am enjoying it more than ever now.”

Meanwhile, a contemporary of his at under-age level, Bernard Dunne, is weighing up his prospects after winning his first two professional fights in the US. The young Dubliner is based at Freddie Roach’s club in Santa Monica. Freddie, it will be recalled, played a major role in Steve Collins’ demolition of Chris Eubank.

“While he won both his fights to date in the second round, he was very impressive,” his father, Brendan a former 1976 Olympian, said. “I think he has to be one of the biggest punchers at his weight. He has some great sparring partners and once he gets going I think he will be one of our best.”