By 
CHARLES ‘The Dream’ McDonagh continued his winning start to life as a professional boxer when overcoming the ‘awkward’ Kasey Bradnum in Newtownabbey’s Mossley Mill by way of a unanimous decision.
“It went well, it was a good four rounds under the belt,” the Dungannon man acknowledged. “He was an awkward opponent.
“He was awkward in that he was trying to taunt me. It was one of those fights with him repeating what my coach was saying, trying to be a pure pain.
“I just kept the head cool and winked at him a couple of times to let him know that he wasn’t getting in my head.
The southpaw’s latest victory brought his record to 4-0 and with another bout already lined up for early 2026,Charles is delighted with how much he has learned during his first year in the paid ranks..
“Each of my four fights has brought something different,” he observed.
“He was trying to taunt me, he was awkward, the previous guy was heavier, coming at me more, so every single fight has always been something different, which, for my first year as a professional boxer, I’m really happy how it’s went.
“I’m learning so much from each fight, which is great.
“I was asked about first round knockouts, but first round knockouts are no good to anyone starting off in their career, because you do more hard training than that and the more rounds under your belt means you’re getting experience as a professional.
“You find that, at certain levels of boxing, some of the top guys are knocking their first 10 opponents out in the second round and then when they actually come up against a good fella, they are struggling or are getting beat.”
McDonagh will be back in action on January 15th when he fights for the second time as a professional in Glasgow and he’s looking forward to making the step up to six rounds.
“I’m looking forward to that because you see four rounds, it doesn’t suit me at all because I found the first round [against Bradnum] was more like chess, trying to figure him out.
“Then into the second round, towards the end of that, I was letting my hands go a bit more and then third and fourth rounds were my best two rounds but the fight was over then,” he explained.
“I was only starting to enjoy it at that stage, so I think the more rounds I get and if the fights go on, you’ll see the best of me over six, eight, 10 rounds.”
