The Rough Diamond

[Mr_Wood]

Hopefully a better movie than the shower of shite 'Strength and honour' depicting the bare knuckle boxing of the travellers fraternity

[Mr_Wood]

http://www.paddy-monaghan.co.uk/

Just been chatting to him, a very nice guy and has trained a lot with Samuel Kwok. Told me he retired because his hands were giving him problems and is now due to have several operations to get them fixed.

[Josealb]

Woa....a bare knuckle irish boxer, who looked at wing chun for some inspiration....that went 114-0-0???

How the hell did i miss this?

[Mr_Wood]

Yeah thats what i thought but you dont often here about the prize fighters as they usually only fought because they had no money so they weren't really doing it for status, just to get some money.

Some more info - http://www.irishboxers.ie/boxer_of_the_past.html#Middleweight

If you go around the boxing gyms in UK you sometimes find these old timers who have very interesting stories of their prize fighting days, not quite to the standard of Paddy Monaghan but all interesting stuff. One guy would tell me of how they would be taken to fight in stately mansions in the country side to provide entertainment for the rich folk and then travelling to Harlem to get cash as a sparring partner for pro boxers and prize fighting the rest of the time.