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Team Hogan planning stadium World Title double header


Dennis Hogan’s team will do all they can to bring WBO light middleweight champion Jamie Munguia to Australia and are targeting a massive stadium world title tilt.

Having defeated Jamie Weetch in Brisbane last weekend the Kildare native is ready to invoke his mandatory status and is all but guaranteed to finally challenge for the belt in Spring timearound March time.

DDP Promotions have already begun preliminary talks with Golden Boy, who co-promote the champion as well as Irish fighters Jason Quigley, Spike O’Sullivan, and Aaron McKenna, although Munguia first has to come through a January 26th defence against Japan’s Takeshi Inoue.

All of the young Mexican’s world title fights have played out in America and his promoters seem keen to build him into a star Stateside on the DAZN platform but Team Hogan are confident they may be able to tempt Munguia Down Under.

“We wrote to both the WBO and Golden Boy this week to let them all know we will be ready to start negotiating Dennis’s title fight,” Dublin’s Paul Keegan of DDP told Irish-Boxing.com.

“Munguia has a fight on the 26th against the WBO #3 so, after that, we will look to lock in a date.  He obviously has to win that fight but they seem to picking guys that he can handle comfortably,” he added before claiming Australia is a viable option for the fight.

A world title double header involving Jeff Horn, who defeated Manny Pacquiao in Australia last year, would give the relatively new-to-the-game promotional outfit the clout and financial power to offer a purse that could perhaps bring the champion to Brisbane and the Suncorp Stadium.

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Hogan and Horn are gym-mates under Glenn Rushton

“Its very realistic,” Keegan continues with confidence.

“On Sunday night I had a very serious conversation with Jeff Horn’s manager and Dennis’s coach, Glenn Rushton, about bringing the biggest boxing event ever to Australia.”

“We want to have a co-main event show with Dennis v Munguia and Jeff versus… I can’t really say but let’s just say he is another Mexican superstar.”

“We have a venue here that holds 60,000, we have the weather, and we have the Queensland government looking to sell Brisbane to the world.”

“Jeff Horn beat Manny here infront of 50,000, this would top that and would be a worldwide spectacle.”

After battling for over a year to get official mandatory status, WBO #1 Hogan literally put it all on the line on last weekend’s ‘All On The Line’ card.

While the 33-year-old was always favoured to win the fight, and his coaching team felt it would serve a purpose in terms of more exposure to Munguia’s fight approach, it remained a risk

Keegan claims his fighter never had any doubts or worries, but with the biggest fight possible on the line for Hogan and potentially the biggest boxing show in Australian history at stake, the promoter admits he had some nerves.

“There is always nerves and pressure but Dennis and Glenn had the best training camp they have had so the confidence was always there. For me, it’s a different story. I am emotionally invested so when Dennis is fighting I’m usually having a bit of a breakdown but we are all mates first and foremost so that’s why.”

“It was a great performance from Dennis all round, that’s the Dennis Hogan that everyone close to him sees day in day out and to be honest there is still more to come. I thought he was going to get Jamie out of there in round seven but, to be fair to Jamie, he is a tough, tough lad.”

While there are always nerves with regard to Hogan’s fights for Keegan and co at DDP Promotions, the Dubliner claims he has no qualms about negotiating with promotional powerhouse Golden Boy ahead of what would be just his sixth show as a promoter.

“There is no real pressure to be honest,” he states.

“I am just being as normal with these promoters as I am to anyone else. It’s exciting that, 14 months after our first show, I will be negating a world title fight and possibly two more as Rohan Murdock had a huge win on Saturday as did Dee Dee Hobbs who wants to fight Katie Taylor late or even early next year.”

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Jonny Stapleton

Irish-boxing.com contributor for 15 years and editor for the past decade. Have been covering boxing for over 16 years and writing about sports for a living for over 20 years. Former Assistant Sports editor for the Gazette News Paper Group and former Tallaght Voice Sports Editor. Have had work published in publications around the world when working as a freelance journalist. Also co-founder of Junior Sports Media and Leinster Rugby PRO of the Year winner. email: editoririshboxing@gmail.com

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