All Wright on the night for McCloskey
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Dungiven boxing star Paul McCloskey gets a touch up in the corner during his bout with Nigel Wright.
DUNGIVEN southpaw, Paul McCloskey has extended his winning streak to 17 and 0 after defeating Englishman Nigel Wright in Limerick on Saturday night.
McCloskey won 97 points to 93 after an old-school contest that saw the men stand nose to nose throughout almost the entire ten rounds.
McCloskey now has his sights firmly set on a title match for his next bout and said that he didn't really care which title would be on the line, as long as it was a championship match.
“ I suppose the natural course to take would be to fight for the British title, then European," said Paul, " but I don't really care, I want a title of some description, If not the British, then the European, if not the European then the World. I Just want to fight for a title."
McCloskey bested Wright after a bright opening couple of rounds set him up for the rest of the fight. Quickly finding his rhythm, 'Doodey' showed off some good variation while commanding the centre of the ring, making Englishman Wright work around him, however at the end of the second, a good right hand from Wright left a visible welt over McCloskey's right eye.
There were no thunderous blows or knockdowns throughout the match, as both men were seemingly quite evenly matched and both displayed intelligent defence strategies, and as the pace slowed going into the sixth Wright began to clench with regularity and continually drop his head below waist level.
As the rounds ticked on McCloskey coped with everything his opponent threw at him, and retaliated with some stylish body blows and some great hook to uppercut combinations. And when the final bell sounded there was only one clear winner. After the match with Cezar Bazan, in which McCloskey wasn't worked at all, this was just the type of match that he needed. It was close-quarter combat which never let up, a fantastic bout which McCloskey can gain great experience from.
After the match Paul said: " It was a very tough fight, Nigel is just coming of a commonwealth title fight so I always knew it would be tough.
“It might not have been pretty, but I would rather win ugly than lose pretty."
