On This Day: August 25th
2007: Bernard Dunne lost his European super bantamweight title, being sensationally knocked out in 86 seconds at the Point Depot. The result was a huge shock for most – aside from the family and friends of Martinez who had huge money on a first round stoppage at odds of 66/1. The Irish Rover would rebuild quickly though and famously defeated Ricardo Cordoba just over 18 months later.
2007: On the undercard in Dublin, Brian Magee drew via majority decision (116-111, 114-114 x2) with Tony Oakey in an unsuccessful British light heavyweight title challenge.
2010: Belfast’s Ryan Burnett defeated (13:6) Azerbaijan’s Salman Alizade to win Ireland’s first, and so far only, Youth Olympic gold. The result was also some revenge for Burnett who had dubiously lost to the same opponent earlier in the year in the light flyweight final of the World Youth Championships – which were held in Azerbaijan. En-route to the final in Singapore, the current British champion defeated Belarussian Vadim Kirilenko (12:0) and Uzbek Zahidjon Khurboyev (2:1).
2014: Four years after Burnett, Michael Gallagher of the Finn Valley ABC in Donegal guaranteed himself a bronze medal at the Games in Nanjing, China. The Donegal teen had defeated Maksim Kozlov Belarus in the quarters before losing to Cuba’s eventual gold medalist Yordan Hernandez in the semis to leave himself with a do-or-die bronze medal box-off. Here Gallagher defeated Korea’s Kim Jin-Nyong to take home a medal.
1958: Belfast’s Terry Milligan won middleweight gold at the Commonwealth Games in Cardiff, outpointing South African Philippus de Plessis in the final. En-route to the final Milligan had beaten New Zealand’s B.R.Weir, Englishman Johnny Caiger, and received a walkover from Indian Hari Singh.
1900: In his first professional fight, Wexford legend Jem Roche knocked out London-born Jack Fitzpatrick in the fourth round at the Antient Concert Rooms in Dublin to win the Irish middleweight title.