Gallaghers Gym vs The World

If you are a British Boxing fan, or just subscribe to Sky Sports, then you would have done well to not be aware of the noise a certain Mancunian gym has been making. For a while now Joe Gallagher has quietly guided his fighters to more notified Boxing achievements than his Denton gym walls can handle, at both amateur and professional levels.

It’s the success at pro level that has made the boxing world sit up and take notice. Joe took over Billy Graham’s gym back in 2008 and has never looked back.

Of course, in front of every good trainer there is a good fighter, but in Gallagher’s case he has a bunch of them and they’ve been out in force. Most recently it was Matthew ‘Mack The Knife’ Macklin(28(19)-3-0) in his controversial decision loss in his World Title fight agaisnt WBA Middleweight Champion Felix Sturm(36(15)-2-1). A fight that ended Gallagher’s 49 fight unbeaten run. A lot of people had Macklin winning and supposedly a ‘gentleman’s agreement’ has been set for a rematch November.

Then you have domestic dominator John Murray(31(18)-0-0), who has just about cleaned up at domestic and European levels picking up the titles as he went. Murray is now getting ready for a July 16th showdown with Kevin ‘The Hammer’ Mitchell(31(23)-1-0), the winner of which you would expect to step up to world stage and contend for some major championships. John Murray’s younger Brother and former Olympian ‘Genius’ Joe Murray(11(5)-0-) is also part of the stable and alongside Hatton Promotions looking to push for some tiles of his own.

Another Hatton Promotions man and Gallagher’s Gym member Anthony ‘Million Dollar Crolla(21(9)-2-0) recently signed up to take on Mexican legend Erik ‘El Terrible’ Morales(51(35)-7-0) at MGM Grand in Las Vegas, on the undercard of the ‘Vicious’ Victor Ortiz v Floyd Mayweather jr show(17/09/2011). A massive opportunity, a huge event with the return of Floyd Mayweather jr bringing a worldwide audience and Crolla being pitted against one of the most popular fighters we’ve seen in recent times with a huge Mexican and American following.

If Crolla can pick up the win, or even just put on a good showing, then it could do wonders for his career and see his ambitions far surpass defended his recently won British Lightweight title. Plus, it’s not like he has a ‘0’ to defend and if his last outing was anything to go by we can expect Crolla to not hold back. Morales, even though past prime, is still took this fight for a win and has stated he doesn’t plan on leaving it to the judges after what he called a ‘robbery’ loss to Marcos ‘El Chino’ Maidana(30(27)-2-0).

Morales will quite rightly be the favourite going into this fight and a lot of people will think Joe Gallagher and Hatton Promotions are feeding Crolla to the lions. Crolla must be confidnet he can do this the business out in the US, but he could have quite easily refused the fight and stuck around at domestic level for a while boosting his record. Praise has to go to everyone involved in the making of this fight for the ambition they are showing.

I think the competition and quality on show at Gallagher’s Gym is really getting the best out the fighters that train there. Maybe if they continue the way they are, then in time, they could see their gym rank amongst some of the best gyms worldwide. Wild Card, 5th Street, Gallaghers? Why not? Well, we will see but for now let’s just hope they keep up the good work and getting themselves involved in great fights, for boxing sakes.