Craig O’Brien v Jay Byrne a “win-win” for Irish boxing
Irish boxing and its fans will be the real winner when Jay Byrne and Craig O’Brien trade leather for the Irish title on the eagerly anticipated Ireland’s Last Man Standing card on March 3rd claims Jonathan Graham of Red Corner Promotions.
The young fight fixer not only believes such a domestic dust-up adds further value to a National Stadium card that will play host to the Prizefighter-style competition but will continue to help reinvigorate the domestic scene and the Irish title itself.
Graham believes a fight that was easy to make but hard to call will make for perfect TV viewing and indicates the win-win nature for both – and will encourage more to fight for domestic honours.
“There is an Irish title theme to the show. The winner of Last Man Standing becomes mandatory for the Irish middleweight title and we have this light middleweight Irish title fight.”
“The Irish scene can only benefit from active Irish titles and we think these fights will play in helping us work toward a scenario were Irish fighters are fighting each other for belts,” Graham told Irish-boxing.com before focusing specifically on the fight. ”
“It’s win-win for Irish boxing. This is a great fight. As soon as we knew both lads were interested we jumped on it. So, in some ways, it was an easy fight to make.”
“Whoever wins, it’s a great fight and for the loser there is no shame in losing this one, it certainly doesn’t spell the end. At the very least both will really boost their profiles fighting on TV for the belt.”
Considering ‘The Iron’ O’Brien’s Red Corner Promotions link, Graham is obviously biased in terms of who he wants to win.
However, he isn’t blinkered into thinking his charge faces an easy 10 rounds come March 3rd. In fact, he suggests a 50-50 battle will ensue.
Graham explained how “we felt it was time for Craig to start pushing on. Jay time and time again has proved his worth no more so than when he blew Crank [Whitehouse] away so both are going to be up for it. It’s the first 10 rounder for both so that will interesting.”
