Moved to Germany – Keane McMahon and Francy Luzoho join Vlad Belujsky on German card

Keane McMahon and Francy Luzoho’s proposed October bouts have been moved from Luxembourg to Columbia, The Columbia Theatre, Germany that is!

‘The Ice Man’ and ‘The Butcher Boy’ were set to fight in the Benelux country on Friday night but the fight venue and date to be altered.

Instead of October 1 and Luxembourg, the Dublin fighters will now trade leather in separate bouts on Sunday, October 3 in Berlin.

McMahon [6(3)-2(1)] now fights Pavel Herman [2-22(25)-1] on a Troja Boxing Group card. The 37-year-old German-based Czech provides the Steven O’Rourke trained fighter with the perfect opportunity to register his first win since March of 2019.

In fact it’s the kind of fight many argued he should have returned to with rather than risk-taking on one of Belgium’s hottest prospects, Anass Messaoudi [11(9)-0], in Brussels in his first fight over two years.

However, even with the benefit of hindsight, 26-year-old McMahon was happy with his decision.

“No regrets,” he declared when speaking to Irish-boxing.com previously.

“No regrets whatsoever. It was a free hit for me. I lose nothing in defeat and, if anything, my stock has risen.

“If I had have fought a journeyman I would have probably blasted them out in a round and learned nothing so what’s the point.”

It wasn’t easy but McMahon has forced himself to look beyond the disappointment of defeat to focus on some of the positives around the recent trip.

“I feel okay to be honest,” he says after the dust has settled on the defeat.

“There were a load of positives to take away from the fight. It’s obviously annoying because I lost but this is boxing.”

Expanding on those positives he notes that “I was happy with the way I was boxing and how comfortable I felt. The Belgian team loved me as well. They invited me over for sparring and said I was the best he’s been in with so far, so there’s a positive.

“I can also take solace in the fact I know top-class European opponents turned the fight down and I said yes after two and a half years out. I think I held my own.”

Luzoho [2(1)-1] ended over two years out of the ring with victory in Luxemburg in June and will be delighted to be out again relatively soon.

Speaking after his last fight he said: “It was an out of body experience.

“Honestly I genuinely remember the blue steps before I got into the ring then the next I remember was my hand being raised.”

Luzoho did watch the victory over Marko Pavlovic back and wasn’t overly content with what he saw. The Lanzarote-based Dub was smart enough to understand he wasn’t going to produce his best considering how long was out but still felt someone had the controls for 50% of the time he was in there.

“My timing was off a tiny bit overall, which is understandable after being out for two years and with it being my first fight back. I would say I’m 50% happy with my performance because it was only 50% of Francy. I just wish it was 6 or 8 rounder. I just didn’t want to leave the ring was having too much fun in there.”

Vladimir Belujsky also appears in an interesting top-of-the-bill clash with Davit Makaradze.