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For Limerick – Jamie Morrissey representing a home hit by tragedies

Jamie Morrissey [3(1)-0] knows his reasons why.

The super middleweight doesn’t need to dig deep to try and motivate himself ahead of his sooner-than-expected BUI Celtic super middleweight title fight in Scotland this weekend.

The Treaty County fighter has made no secret of his desire to become the first person to hold domestic titles in two combat codes, Muay Thai and boxing – but that’s only one win stimulus.

Morrissey gets huge inspiration from his home city and has a huge desire to win for Limerick. The Shaun Kelly-trained fighter with a degree in ‘true grit’ has a real heart for his town, says he has felt a lot of its recent pains and would love nothing more than to give his community reason to smile.

Defeat Ben McGivern [3-0-1] in just his fourth fight in the Lagoon Leisure Centre, Paisley and win the BUI Celtic title this coming Saturday and the 27-year-old believes he will do just that.

“Cus D’Amato said you need to fight for something external to yourself,” he tells Irish-boxing.com.

“I think any good fighter will take external motivations and you don’t have to look too far in this city to find them. I don’t know of so many tragedies happening so close together anywhere else in this country. Everyone has lost a lot of people in this town. The last five years have been tough but the memory of these people live on and we are all proud to represent them.”

The Ian Gaughran-managed super middle, who has come from nowhere to play a huge part in a change of attitude toward domestic fights of late, is confident he can use the prettiest title in Irish boxing to do some good.

“Boxing can make a difference and I’m proud to be part of it,” he adds.

“The title is gonna play a big part in me making the changes I want to make and achieving what I want to achieve.”

Morrissey has mentioned changes more than once but is reluctant to delve deeper at the moment. It’s almost like he’s saving it for his post-title victory speech, but that doesn’t appear to be the case either.

“I’ll let my actions do the talking,” he adds when probed.

Despite still being relatively new to boxing, Morrissey goes into the title fight as favourite. Most surmise he’ll have too much for an older, smaller foe. The Munster man doesn’t want to entertain favourite talk but won’t have mention defeat either.

“You can’t afford to lose, losing isn’t an option. I’m keeping thoughts of losing external from my mind. I’m coming to win. Me at my best I think I’ll be able to put on a clinic.”

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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