Light welterweight Paul McCloskey in chief support
Internet boxing fans who watched the Irish television broadcast of Andy Lee’s Irish title fight win over Jason McKay in December got an unexpected treat when the ‘other’ title bout on the bill, a Colin Moffett-Eugene Heagney bout for the Irish bantamweight championship, proved to be an absolute barn-burner of a fight, a nonstop war that wound up with the journeyman Moffett, who entered the fight with a lowly 7-11-4 record, upending the previously undefeated Heagney on an eighth-round TKO.
On February 2, 2008, the Emanuel Steward-trained Lee fights for the second straight time in his homeland, this time in his native Limerick. Lee will be opposed by a 14-3-2 Argentinian middleweight named Alejandro Gustavo Falliga at the University Sports Arena. Promoter Brian Peters has also arranged an interesting test for fast-moving Dungiven junior welter Paul McCloskey, who hopes to further boost his ring credentials with a fight against 32 year-old Mexican veteran Manuel Garnica. (Both the Lee-Falliga and McCloskey-Garnica fights will be televised by RTE2 at 4 pm EST, and can be accessed over the net by going to RTE.ie.)
McCloskey is coming off his best career win, a fourth-round TKO of 37-6 Bulgarian veteran Tontcho Tontchev in a fight for the IBF international title on the Dec. 8 John Duddy-Howard Eastman card in Belfast. (Tonchev, eliminated by Oscar De La Hoya in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, turned professional after beating Terrence Cauthen on his way to the silver medal in Atlanta four years later.) Trained by John Breen, McCloskey hails from Duddy’s home county, Derry, and was an amateur teammate of the New York-based Irish middleweight.
“Paul looks like he has only two gears, slow and stop,” jokes Duddy of his longtime friend. “He’s so relaxed in there you get the impression he could fall asleep in the ring. He’s always been that way, since we were coming up together as amateurs, but he’s impossible to hit, and he’s had some great wins recently. He seems to be really sitting down on his shots and getting power behind them. It’s great to see him doing so well.”
The IBF International title doesn’t carry much weight, but Peters is hoping to parlay that with a win over Garnica that might nudge McCloskey into contenderhood later on in 2008.
Garnica’s 21-8 record provides an interesting resume. In his first incarnation a decade ago he beat Gabriel Ruelas and lost a controversial decision to John John Molina. Returning to the ring in 2005, he beat former champion Carlos Maussa and lost a disputed split decision to Juan Lazcano in 2006. Although he lost twice in three outings last year, both losses were to undefeated fighters – 17-0 Timothy Bradley in California and 30-0 Marcos Rene Maidana in Germany.
Andy Lee has been pulling double duty in West Palm Beach, where the southpaw has prepped for the Falliga fight by sparring half a dozen rounds a day with Aaron Pryor Jr. before then switching into his Sultan Ibragimov mode for a few rounds with Wladimir Klitschko. Lee plans to break camp on Friday and head to Ireland that night.
