McDonagh set for ‘Thriller At The Mill’

CHARLES McDonagh is looking forward to his fourth professional fight when he takes part in the Thriller At The Mill show in Newtownabbey on November 2nd.

The Dungannon man has three wins from his first three bouts in the paid ranks after earning unanimous points wins over Nestor Maradiaga, Karl Sampson and Owen Durnan and he is confident of making it 4-0 in five weeks time.

At the time of going to Press, his opponent hadn’t been announced, but McDonagh feels that is something of an irrelevance at this stage in his career as he focuses on himself and what he can do in the ring.

“I think it’s going to be another four rounder at this stage, so the focus will be on me and what I can do,” he explained. “It will be the same as any fight, get in there and protect yourself because an upset can always happen. I always have to be switched on no matter who I’m fighting for how many rounds it is.

“That’s the thing about the boxing, if you’re not switched on and, for example, if I think ‘this guy or that guy will be easy’, he could throw a big wild backhand and knock me clean out in the second round, so my mindset is, no matter who it is, I’ll line them up, I’m going to be ready and focused to do what has to be done on the night.”

After this encounter at Mossley Mill, McDonagh is likely going to see his next few fights take place in Glasgow, but before then he’s keen to continue flying the Tyrone flag close to home while thriving on what he sees as a healthy local professional boxing scene.

“I was meant to be fighting in Glasgow at the end of October but then my manager was chatting to me and said this one was closer to home, so think it over and see what you want to do. So, I decided to do this one because it’s closer to home, I can give the fans one more at home and then possibly my next few will be in Glasgow,” he added.

“It’s in Newtownabbey at Mossley Mill which is obviously not as big [a venue] as my last one but it’s a pure class set up, it looks very well and it will be one that I can always say I fought in and the bill has a lot of up and coming fighters on it.

“We’re all hungry, we’re all looking to get our names out there but that’s how the sport is looking in this country at the minute. Up our way, Tyrone/Donegal, professional boxing is really taking off whereas if you look back a few years there wasn’t much going on. Obviously you had Feargal [McCrory] but apart from him, was there anyone else local?

“So at the minute, it’s class and it’s great to see and with us all winning and getting on good it gives you a buzz because it’s great to see us all representing Tyrone, so long may it continue!”