Ahead of his top-of-the-bill appearance in Dublin this weekend, Pierce O’Leary is full of confidence.
“It wasn’t a dream, it was the plan,” he said of headlining against Portsmouth’s Mark Chamberlain.
O’Leary is now 19-0 (11 KOs) and lit up the 3Arena in March when stopping veteran Maxi Hughes in the fifth round.
“The reception that I got from the fans, it was stupid not to go back there,” O’Leary said. “It was one of the best nights of my entire career. And people are at all the boxing events there in the 3Arena and even the UFC events, and they’re like, ‘We’ve never, ever, ever experienced nothing the way we experienced it on the night.’
“They said that was unbelievable. I was on top of the stage and I was looking from corner to corner and right around, I went, ‘Wow, these are all here for me.’ I got a little bit emotional. I got a bit of a lump in my throat and it meant a lot. It touched me. It meant a lot just to see everybody, half of them I knew. They were all from around the corner from me. And just to see the support from them and looking up and looking at everyone shouting your name.
“Oh man, it was like someone just picked me up and brought me to the ring. It was a crazy, crazy feeling.”
That fight was on a bill topped by Anthony Cacace against Jazza Dickens but now O’Leary is the man tasked with heading the card.
“I had a job to do and that job was to get Maxi Hughes out of there,” O’Leary said. “Everything around that ring was black. I couldn’t see anything. All I could see was my opponent in front of me. And I said, ‘Right, let’s get him out of there now.’”
Southpaw Chamberlain is coming off a hard-fought draw with Jack Rafferty last August.
Their paths have not previously crossed and O’Leary doesn’t see Chamberlain as a step up from Hughes, who moved up in weight to take the opportunity.
“Maxi could make 135,” O’Leary admitted. “These are natural 140s. I’ve got my credit for fighting Maxi. Obviously his [Chamberlain’s] name is not as big as Maxi’s, but he’s still a difficult fighter and he’s still a fighter who we don’t overlook.”
Irish boxing is set for a purple patch, with O’Leary leading the charge this weekend, Zuffa Boxing making their Irish bow next week, and Katie Taylor’s Croke Park farewell in September.
Taylor is the fighter to which all Irish stars aspire, and the Croke Park dream is one O’Leary now shares. He is, after all, managed by Brian Peters, who has represented Taylor throughout her illustrious career.
“You look at Katie Taylor and you look at her profile and what she’s done in boxing, people don’t really know her personally,” O’Leary said. “I’ve seen her go from the amateurs all the way up to the pros. And I’ve seen her when she’s an amateur and I’ve seen when she’s a professional.
“I had dinner with her last year and she’s still the same person, still the exact same person. She hasn’t changed nothing. And just as a person, the conversations you have with her, and it’s a beautiful thing being around a company as well because she doesn’t really want to speak boxing and I don’t either. It was just family this and family that and what she does outside boxing and stuff. And it was a really, really good conversation. I really enjoyed it.
“She’s a proper icon. Obviously my girls [two daughters] are growing up and they look at me and being in the ring, et cetera, but they’ll get to a certain age and I’ll say, ‘That’s the girl, that’s the woman there who you want to be looking at.’”
For now, O’Leary has relished being in back-to-back camps as he sharpens his tools for Chamberlain. O’Leary is rated No. 7 by the WBC and 10 with the IBF, whose junior welterweight title is presently vacant but due to be contested between Lindolfo Delgado and Arthur Biyarslanov.
“It’s helped me so much and energised the body and let the body heal and we’re good to go,” he said.
“We’re flying. I’m a [IBO] champion now and we want to get this fight out of the way, sit down, regroup and as a team with Brian Peters, my coach and [promoter] Frank [Warren], we’ll go from there. I think that’s the best scenario to do because I think we’ve got a massive event at the end of the year.”
