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Historic homecoming – Goffs world title fight in the pipeline for Katelynn Phelan

Katelynn Phelan [4(1)-0]could end 2021 with a historic world title fight in her home county of Kildare.

The young prospect registered one of the biggest wins in Irish boxing in 2020, surprising Jessica Schadko in Germany to claim the WBC world youth title among some lesser recognized crowns.

The 20-year-old is now looking to build on that victory and continue the momentum – and if things go to plan she could make all sorts of history come the year-end.

Boxing Ireland are planning a course of action, that will end with Phelan bringing the first-ever female world title fight to Ireland and world title boxing back to Kildare for the first time in over 100 years.

Leonard Gunning of Boxing Ireland has revealed talks have begun with Goffs to bring a special night to the venue.

“We’ve looked at a number of venues for fights up and down Kildare over the last number of years but we could find no suitable venue until we came across Goffs. It looks perfect so now we are looking to make the fight happen,” the promoter told the Kildare Nationalist.

“We have been speaking to the people at Goffs and they’re really excited about it, which is great. They want a big night for Katelynn Phelan there and despite the fact that we have Katie Taylor this would be the first-ever world female title fight in Ireland and it would be a welcome home that befits a World Champion,” he added.

The plan isn’t to have the St Brigid graduate, who is out in Luxembourg on March 20, defend the world youth world title she currently possess.

Phelan’s team wants her to work her way down towards lightweight, the division Katie Taylor dominates and a division packed with names and thus big fights for the young talent.

“We don’t plan to defend the welterweight titles won in Germany as we hope to bring Katelynn down to light-welterweight and eventually to the lightweight division where real big fights are happening,” Gunning added.

“The fight in Luxembourg will be at light-welterweight. Katelynn is number 12 in the world, she is only 20 years of age and all her competitors in the top ten, bar one, are in their 30’s and 40’s.”

Considering Goffs only holds 600 to make a world title fight viable finance would have to be garnered from fields outside the ticket selling realm.

Gunning has called for sponsors to join what promises to be a unique and exciting journey to get behind Phelan, who has already turned down a world title fight.

“We are looking to the business community in Kildare to try and bring this massive, historic night of professional boxing to the county.

“Additional sponsorship is required to make the fight a viable event and it’s not easy to get sponsorship at the moment as so many businesses are struggling,” Gunning adds before revealing there is already TV interest in the fighter.

“We have interest from TV stations and the fact that Katelynn was recently nominated for the RTE Young Sportsperson of the Year Award brings her under the RTE radar.”

Photo credit Babs Daly.

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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