Dean Byrne Sacrificed for sake of new Box Nation channel

Dean Byrne Sacrificed for sake of new Box Nation channel
By David Boyle

Last night as I sat down to watch fellow Irishman Dean “ Irish lightning” Byrne fight in his second fight in a week, I was a bit worried by his discision to step into Frankie Gavin’s shoes against Frank Hotha in Manchester.
Frankie Gavin having pulled out of the fight with Hotha, Byrne being the warrior that he is stepped in to replace him. In hindsight that was a big mistake.
First off he was steeping up to welterweight for the fight even though he is a light welterweight, also the fact that the having boxed only a week ago he had only one days notice for the fight and thus having to lose 9 pounds in 24 hours. Now last week there was all the talk of making weight properly and safety is paramount yet here we had a fighter going into sauna’s to make the weight and entering the ring looking like a ghost, well that not safety in my eyes.
Also the fight was made over 12 rounds even though it was a non title fight and having never gone the 12 round distance and only trained for 8 rounds I the previous fight you have to question the team around Byrne and why was he let take the fall. He could have been badly hurt last night when he clearly was to brave for his own good.

There is no doubt that Frankie Gavin pulling out of the fight was a huge blow for the promote and Box Nation but the fact is that Dean Byrne was sacrificed so that the channel only on air a month would not suffer. The viewers will have to pay a subscription fee from January of 2012 so the channel couldn’t take a blow like cancelling the show. So Dean was given the nod to fight.

For me that was just wrong and it showed. From the off he was being caught with shots left right and centre. Byrne looked smaller, had no power and you could see he had struggled to get the weight off for the fight. I know that he had a manager like Brian Peters he would not have been allowed to fight Hotha.
It was a struggle and Dean took punches last night that he shouldn’t have a way to much to. Thank god his corner stepped in to save there fighter because Dean Byrne would have been there until the end taking to much punishment.

The show might have been saved but how much of a toll will this fight have taken on Byrne and I hope I won’t see him fighting under those circumstances again.