Winning debut by Bradley in Poland

ANYONE who thought a break of several years from competitive ring action would have blunted Tiernan Bradley’s considerable arsenal of weapons was given a comprehensive answer on Saturday night of last week in Poland when he claimed a comprehensive maiden professional victory.

The Omagh welterweight dispatched Kornel Cendrowski inside two and a half minutes of a totally one-sided first round that left his opponent grateful to the referee for calling a premature end to his dissection.

The Pole, was a late replacement for Bradley’s original opponent, Radoslaw Ruduik, who broke his arm during fight week, and it was apparent from the first bell that he was out of his depth against the supremely talented Tyrone fighter.

The gulf in class between the pair was greater than the distance Tiernan travelled from his Dublin base to Walcz in western Poland for his debut in the paid ranks and it only took the 23-year-old Tyrone man a matter of seconds to force the referee to issue a standing count to Cendrowski.

From that point on it was a matter of when, not if, the bout would be stopped.

“My opponent came in a little bit heavier than me because his last fight was at middleweight. He was about 3 to 3.5kg heavier than me but he could have carried more and I don’t think he’d have done any damage to me because he didn’t have enough power in his punches,” Bradley observed.

“I was goading him on to punch me because I wasn’t pressured on the stoppage but the combinations were just coming too cleanly. I was catching him with some big, big punches and I don’t think he wanted anything to do with it.

“[After the initial knockdown] I could see his nose was running with blood, but I saw his body was soft so I moved down there to work that with a few left hooks and then I landed a right hook and I could see the pain on his face.

“Once he started protecting his body I went back to the head and I caught him again and he was completely bamboozled so at that stage I actually felt sorry for him. I looked at his face and I could tell he didn’t want anything to do with it so I tried to put him away as kindly as you can in boxing!”

FULL STORY IN LAST THURSDAY’S ULSTER HERALD