Sweeney gets WSB career off to perfect start
Galway’s Gary Sweeney, lining out for the Mexico Guerreros, helped bring the British Lionhearts’ unbeaten home run to an end at York Hall on his World Series of Boxing (WSB) debut in London tonight.
The Olympic BC heavyweight beat Jitaur Ionut-Mirel of Romania on a unanimous decision (50-45,50-45,49-46) over five, three minutes at York Hall.
The win fired the Guerreros into an unassailable 3-0 lead in the third fight of the five-bout match.
Sweeney’s quality shots, particularly in the first three rounds sealed this win. The 2014 Irish Elite champion found the target with a big right in the first and continued to pepper the Romanian with simple but effective combinations in frames two and three.
The 2011 European Youth silver medallist got tagged with a right uppercut late in the fourth, but it wasn’t enough to stop the judges handing him a 10-9 round.
The only blemish on an otherwise perfect WSB debut for the Connaught orthodox arrived in the fifth and final stanza after he was left with a cut over his right eye with less than 15 seconds to go to the final bell following a clash of heads as Ionut-Mirel went for the knockout to salvage what was by then a hopeless cause for the Romanian.
Irish coach Eddie Bolger was working Sweeney’s corner in London. Mexico won the match 3-2.
