Defiant Connor Coyle’s message to Matchroom and world middles

Connor Coyle’s appetite for boxing hasn’t been damaged by his latest setback, in fact, he is more hungry than ever to taste big-time action.

Coyle came extremely close to having the breakout fight and boxing payday he had worked so hard to secure, only for injury to rule him out of his proposed clash with Ammo Williams.

The Derry middleweight was set to to fight the Matchroom-promoted Texan in WBA world title eliminator at the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas on the undercard of Conor Benn’s clash with Peter Dobson this weekend.

Instead, he is back in Derry nursing an injury, although not licking his wounds. The Commonwealth Games medal winner has every right to feel sorry for himself, particularly as it’s his second Benn undercard bout to fall through, but is in a defiant more than despondent mood.

“I’m hungry to fight and I will fight any middleweight in the world,” Coyle tells Irish-boxing.com

“I’ll call out any big name that wants to fight, I’m 20-0 and No.5 with the WBA,” he adds before revealing he is ready to aim at Ammo.

“I also want to let Matchroom know that I will still fight Ammo, if they want to do it again in Spring in! I want to beat him.I will beat him if we fight.”

It is bullish from the 33-year-old but the spirited response does have its roots in frustration and disappointment.

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The pain of dealing with another big fight falling through is added to by the financial hit and the fact that time away from the family now feels wasted.

“I’m devastated to say the least,” he adds.

“I’ve worked extremely hard for this opportunity and I’ve put a lot of hours In away from my kids, as well as spending a lot of money.

“We were originally supposed to fight January 13th, so we booked flights to Florida November 5th to begin our preparations, then we were told it was going to be postponed, possibly until February 24th. So I booked flights back home again on December 10th to be home for Christmas for the kids. December 22nd we were told the fight was happening in Vegas on February 3rd. So we booked flights back again on December 27th to finish our original preparations,” opening the curtain to the crazy world of pro boxing.

The injury that ruled the Fire Fist Promotions 160lbs fighter happened in his first spar after rushing back to Florida.

“I felt something go on my elbow, but I only had 4 weeks to finish my camp, so I didn’t have time to rest. Not knowing how bad the injury was I continued to train and the pain progressed more and more. I went to a well-known doctor in the States, he did an ultra-sound, and said it was inflamed around the joint and tendons with slight tare.”

Coyle did consider fighting through the pain but his team eventually took the decision out of his hands.

“His medical opinion was to not fight with one arm, Plus he said I could have made the elbow a lot worse for the future of my career. My team made the official decision to pull me out. It was extremely heartbreaking for me, after a long camp away from
my 3 kids. I came home empty-handed without a fight. That was the last thing I wanted to do,” he adds before sending a message to his fans.

“I want send my sincere apologies to my fans who booked flights, hotels, and bought tickets for the fight. It was out of my control and I am truly disappointed for them also. I want to thank all my sponsors who have been a part of this journey to date and I promise I will be back very very soon.”