QUINN’S OFF TO A FLYER
Conor set to head Belfast card
FRANK Warren is returning to the SSE Arena in Belfast at the end of the month.
Warren, who co-promoted Michael Conlan’s failed IBF featherweight title challenge to Luis Alberto Lopez at the same venue just over a year ago along with Bob Arum and Jamie Conlan, will return to the former Odyssey Arena three weeks tonight with an 11-fight card.
Last year’s show represented Warren’s first visit to the North in five years, but with a growing Irish stable, the Hall of Fame promoter plans to make more regular crossings of the Irish Sea.
This latest card, which will include seven samples of local talent, will be headed by unbeaten local flyweight Conor Quinn in a showdown for the vacant Commonwealth title against the also undefeated Conner Kelsall.
Younger
It will also feature an allIrish shoot-out between Pierce O’Leary and Darragh Foley for the former’s WBC International light-welterweight title.
Quinn, a 26-year-old, has nine wins and a draw to his name while Kelsall, a year younger and born in Rotherham but living in nearby Doncaster, is 11-0.
Quinn, incidentally, will be attempting to become the third Irishman to become Commonwealth champion in the division... the first was none other than Rinty Monaghan in 1948, followed by Damaen Kelly half a century later.
The remaining “home” fighters on the bill are Colm Murphy, James McGivern, Steven Cairns and Eoghan Lavin.
Murphy, the reigning Irish super-featherweight champion, is a 24-year-old who is clearly an emerging talent. With two wins under his belt already this year, he puts his 11-0 record on the line in a ten rounder against Jack Turner, a Glaswegian with just a single loss in seven fights.
McGivern, a former amateur star who in addition to winning a national Elite Championship picked up a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games six years ago, has an eight out of eight record and puts it on the line in a defence of his Celtic lightweight title against unbeaten Rashid
Omar (6-0) from Cardiff.
Cairns, a 21-year-old Cork lightweight has a 7-0 record compiled in Spain, Germany, England, Uzbekistan and Denmark .. and now, finally, Ireland. He meets Jonatas Rodrigo Gomes de Oliveira from Brazil over six rounds.
Visiting
The visiting members of Warren’s stable are Jadier Herrera, a second Jack Turner, Walter Fury and Nocola Barke.
Herrera (21), a Dubai based Cuban southpaw superlightweight, seems particularly interesting.
He has a perfect 14-0 record – all but two of his wins inside the distance – and in his first paid outing outside his adopted homeland takes on a tough looking eightrounder against Andres Colombian Navarrete (27), with just a single loss in a dozen fights.
Turner, a 22-year-old Scouse bantamweight, has won six out of six and, over half a dozen rounds, meets Darwing Martinez, a Spanish based Nicaraguan native who went the distance with Kurt Walker in the Ulster Hall last January.
Fury, a debutant middleweight, will take on Southampton-based Vasif Mamedov from Russia over four rounds, while there is no opponent as yet for
Barke, a 30-year-old welterweight who has won each of her four outings thus far.