February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The featherweight bout will be one of the highlights at a charity event to be hosted by actors Arnold Schwarzenegger and William Shatner, the Los Angeles-based fighter said last weekend.
“I’m feeling in good form,” Dunne, who’s 22, said. “I was home in Dublin for 10 days but kept training. Everything else is good. [I’m] on a good roll and I’m looking forward to this.”
This will be his last four-rounder before he moves up to the six-round level in his next fight, which could come as early as March 17, according to manager Brian Peters’s plans.
“My fight on March 17 all depends on how I feel after this weekend’s fight,” Dunne explained.
Promoted by the legendary Sugar Ray Leonard and coached by Mike Tyson’s latest trainer, Freddie Roach, the hard-hitting youngster has been fighting once a month since returning from a brief suspension last January. An erroneous medical reading triggered the ban.
In his last outing, Dunne, who many tip to be Ireland’s next boxing superstar, flattened Trujillo of Denver in less than a round at Sam’s Town Hotel and Gambling Hall in Las Vegas four weeks ago.
That win upped his record to 4-0 (4 KOs).
On his recent trip home, Dunne said he’d attended the All-Irish Championships and was impressed by some of the participants.
COONEY HONORED
Former heavyweight contender Gerry Cooney has been named recipient of the 2002 Marvin Kohn Good Guy Award by the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA).
Cooney was honored by BWAA members for his work with the Fighters Institute for Support and Training, which he founded five years ago. FIST provides financial assistance and employment opportunities for ex-boxers in need.
“I’m very excited,” the retired prize-fighter with County Mayo roots said last Sunday. “All I’m doing is the right thing. I’m glad that FIST has taken off and is going in the right direction.”
Cooney will be presented with the award by his most famous nemesis and now good friend, Larry Holmes, at BWAA’s 78th Annual Awards Dinner at the Marriot Marquis hotel in New York on April 25.
Holmes was world heavyweight champion when he turned back the left-hooking Cooney’s fierce challenge for the crown with a 13th-round TKO in June 1982.
A two-time New York Golden Gloves champion as an amateur, Cooney retired from the ring after a fourth-round loss to George Foreman in January 1990, the last of his three losses in a 31-fight pro career.