February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Making his first appearance in this year’s competition, the 29-year-old O’Regan looked better value than the 3-2 nod given to him by the five judges in the four-round 178-pound open class bout that concluded the show at the Bronx Police Athletic League.
He comprehensively outboxed Anderson, who was representing Starrett City’s Strong Bros. boxing club, in the first stanza and seemed to land the better punches as they grappled over the next two rounds.
Despite a desperate late rally by Anderson, who received a tongue lashing from trainer Greg Dyer before the fourth and final heat, O’Regan, representing Webster PAL, still appeared to have won the fight handily.
He advanced to the quarterfinals for the third time in as many tournaments and will fight again next Thursday night, March 3, at the Red Hook PAL, at 110 West 9th St. in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The show starts at 8 p.m.
“I felt good in there,” the unscathed O’Regan, who dedicated the win to his wife, Sharon, said. “He was a tough guy and a lot bigger than me, but when I caught him a few times he backed up.”
O’Regan’s trainer, Edwin Martinez, said his charge needs to use the left hook more, as well as throw more punches in clinches.
“I know he can be much better,” Martinez, a former pro, said. “There’re a couple of things we have to work on. I’m trying to get him to fight more.”
O’Regan, who’s now 7-2 in the Golden Gloves since his 2002 debut, said Martinez has him sparring a lot more than his previous trainers had and it showed against Anderson.
The 5-foot-11 Yonkers carpenter came in the first round winging short hooks during a fierce opening two minutes marked by some unrelenting close-quarters action. O’Regan got in the best licks, although the 26-year-old Anderson ended the round by landing a hard left hook to the jaw just before the bell.
The fight then degenerated into a wrestling with lots of clinching and few clean hits. Even then, O’Regan was the fighter trying the most to get his punches off.
At the end of the third round, trainer Dyer in Anderson’s corner, realizing that O’Regan was ahead, berated his man for not throwing more punches.
“I told him to keep attacking and that the guy [O’Regan] is an awkward fighter. He [Anderson] did nothing,” Dyer said.
Anderson responded with his best work of the night, pulling away from clinches and landing more blows than O’Regan. From press row, it seemed too little, too late, but as it turned out, two of the five judges thought he’d done enough to merit the decision.
O’Regan now attempts to break his quarterfinal jinx in the Gloves next week. The Yonkers carpenter failed to make it past the last eight as a 178-pound novice in 2002 and lost again at the same stage last year in the 165-pound novice class. He did not enter the 2003 competition.
Now in its 78th year, the New York Daily News Golden Gloves tournament is the oldest and largest amateur boxing competition in the United States. Since its inception in 1927, the tournament has served as a launching pad for many successful ring careers, including those of Sugar Ray Robinson, Floyd Patterson, Gerry Cooney and Riddick Bowe.