O’Kane: I need to be better than that if I am to become World champ

EAMONN O’Kane took a massive step toward a World title shot with victory over Lewis Taylor in front of his home support on Saturday night, but stresses he will have to perform a lot better to give is loyal support World title success to celebrate.

The 32 year old middleweight claimed a majority points victory in an entertaining clash with the previously unbeaten English fighter, but despite showing grit and determination claims the win came after a below par performance.

The win moves O’Kane up to third in the IBF World rankings and he remains on course to fight the winner of Hassan N’Dam or David Lemieux, who will battle for the vacant IBF strap over the summer.

However. ‘King Kane’ knows he needs to improve if he is to reign supreme in the division.

Speaking about Saturday’s clash the Commonwealth gold winner said,

“I didn’t feel the usual spark. I’ve been sparring cruiserweights, world class super-middleweights like George Groves for 13-15 rounds but tonight it didn’t seem like the usual Eamonn O’Kane was there.

“The occasion would be a good excuse to use but I can’t use it. I just feel like I couldn’t get out of the blocks.

“His style was just clashing with mine, he was just nullifying what I was doing –  maybe I was closing the gap too much and he was closing the gap and we ended up just hugging each other most of the time.

“But I think I let the quality combinations go when I let them go and I let the bigger shots go and that was the telling fact of the fight,” he said before discussing his World title hopes.

“I’ll be shunted up the ratings now, there’s talk about me going up to number three in the world. I’d need to be better than that to fight Hassan N’Dam or David Lemieux but I’ll go away, I’ll scrutinise myself and I’ll be better the next day.

“There’s Andy Lee, there’s Billy Joe Saunders, there’s Chris Eubank jnr and then there’s Matthew Macklin. I want to become world champion, I’d need to be better than I was tonight, but I’m getting better and the more fights at that level I’ll get there.”