O'Kane: O'Sullivan could shock Saunders

Recently-crowned Irish middleweight champion Eamonn O’Kane has revealed that preparations for his 97-94 win over Anthony Fitzgerald in Dundalk on July 12 were aided by ex-champion Gary O’Sullivan.

Cork banger O’Sullivan gets his big break on Saturday, July 20 against unbeaten London star Billy Joe Saunders and O’Kane reckons that O’Sullivan’s chilling punching power could be the difference. Eamonn also admitted that he would be willing to defend his domestic belt against spar-mate ‘Spike’.

“Why not? Spike’s a gentleman, he helped me get ready [for Fitzgerald] and I helped him get ready [for Saunders],” explained Eamonn. “I hope he knocks Billy Joe Saunders out because ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan can punch.

"He’s a great lad, a great trainer and all the team in there, Paschal Collins and the lads, are very professional. They train hard and I’m grateful that they allowed me in and I think they’re grateful that I came down to spar as well. Spike’s going to do a great job [on Saturday night] because he’s been training very hard.”

After a high-quality 10 rounds of title action O’Kane managed to up the ante down the stretch and outpoint Fitzgerald by three points on Mickey Vann’s scorecard in the big domestic showdown last weekend.

It was a good win for the Dungiven man who is slowly working his way past a sole defeat to John Ryder last year. He is now searching for some veritable challengers to his newly acquired all-Ireland strap.

“Who can I defend it against? I’ll definitely defend it against whoever,” Eamonn welcomed, before realistically admitting that the likes of Matthew Macklin and Andy Lee are never going to come back to fight for an Irish title.

“There’s Anthony Fitzgerald, but I already beat him. O’Sullivan is moving on to bigger and better things. Who’s going to fight for the Irish title? I’d definitely love to defend it.

“I think this win puts me in the top 15 in Europe. I’m willing to move on and build on this performance. I’ve been with them [Bernardo Checa and his new training team] since just after Christmas so I’m learning and starting to implement some of the stuff; I hoped I showed that tonight.

"Sometimes you think you boxed better than you actually did, but I think I was back to boxing again. I tried not to get involved in a war and I stuck to boxing and proved I can box.”

Whether or not O’Kane had grown stale under the tutelage of former amateur coach Gerry ‘Nugget’ Nugent is debatable but he does seem to be revelling under his fresh start in Belfast’s recently-opened All Origins gym.

“Forget about titles, I’m happy on making an improvement. I’ve been training hard. Bernardo’s guiding me, Oscar’s guiding me, there’s other  guys in the gym that are guiding me and they’re going to push me on to bigger and better things, no doubt,” he concluded.