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Show mercy – ‘Savage’ Babic reveals strange request from HIS IRISH FANS ahead of Niall Kennedy clash

Alen Babic [4(4)-0] claims his Irish fans have asked him not to give ‘The Savage’ free reign tomorrow night.

The Croatian heavyweight takes Wexford’s Niall Kennedy [13(8)-1(1)] on the undercard of Joshua Buatsi versus Marko Calic live on Sky Sports.

The big punching knockout lover has spent the build up proclaiming his alter ego, ‘The Savage’ wants Irish blood, but now claims it might be difficult to unleash the beast.

The 29-year-old states he has a strong Irish following and although those Irish fans want to see him win, they are asking him to show Kennedy mercy.

“I have a lot of Irish fans,” said Babic. “A lot of them messaged me: ‘Please, be good to Niall, he’s a good man’.

“I see that and it’s going to be hard to activate ‘The Savage,’ he’s such a nice man. I don’t want to hurt him, but I will do that in the ring, I will have to do it.

“But I’m not going to say nothing bad about him now, because I do respect him and I have a lot of respect for boxing.

“I don’t see him beating me, honestly. I think he’s [an] average boxer at best. It’s just my opinion. He could be much better than that.”

It’s quite unlikely that many Irish people nevermind boxing followers would be pro Babic going into tomorrow’s fight. Not only is ‘Boom Boom Baz’ one of the more popular figures within the sport, a win for the Gorey heavy tomorrow would be good for boxing as a whole in Ireland.

It’s quite possible the media savy Croat has noticed his ‘Savage’ talk hasn’t rattled Kennedy, in fact the Pascal Collins trained big man welcomed the hype, so he took the fan route.

Kennedy insists he seized the opportunity to battle Babic, despite his opponent’s aggressive reputation, as the 36-year-old is confident that he can emerge with victory from an explosive encounter.

“Look, I’m coming over here to win and when I beat Alen, I move on and it will be seen by loads of people because of this man,” said Kennedy.

“It will be interesting, it will be fun. I’m not going to have to send a search team, to be fair to him.”

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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