McCloskey and Prizefighter set for Belfast for April 21

By Jonny Stapleton

Paul McCloskey will join forces with Prizefighter to bring big time boxing to Belfast on April 21.

However, whilst plans to bring the knock out tournament to Ireland as an under card to a

mega ‘Dudey’ clash are well underway it is still ‘wait and see’ in terms of an opponent for the popular light welterweight.

Eddie Hearn last week mentioned Australian Michael Katsidis as a potential McCloskey foe as Mirror Sport exclusively revealed his intentions, but Team McCloskey claim talks with ‘The Great’ have stalled slightly.  The boxing king of Queensland, who lost to Ricky Burns in his last bout, says he has had another offer, which in truth could be just a negotiating ploy.

Having tried and failed to lure Zab Judah, Marcos Maidana, Timothy Bradley and more to Belfast the former European champion must be eager to get an opponent confirmed, but will be pleased to have a date on which to focus on.

“Katsidis initially agreed to take the fight, but now he is stalling. He claims he has another offer so we have to keep our options open. We are looking at various top 10 contenders too,” McCloskey’s manager and father in law Francie McNichol told Mirror Sport.

“We are keen for the Katsidis fight and with Prizefighter as an under card it would be a massive night for boxing, but in terms of opponent it is still wait and see for the moment. Whoever the opponent is the show will go ahead on April 21. That is the date Sky have put aside for the show and the date we have the Odyssey booked for.The 14th of April has also been mentioned but as I said Sky have the 21st set aside. ”