Croke Park Undercard Delivers Drama and Brutal Finishes
The lights were still settling over Croke Park, the crowd only beginning to thicken, when the tone of Katie Taylor’s farewell night was set: ruthless, emotional, and at times uncomfortable to watch.
There will be a Westlife set later, a show within a show. Before that, the fighters on the undercard fought as if this was their one chance to leave a mark on a historic night. For some, it was the performance of a lifetime. For others, it was a lesson that came with a heavy price.
Bevan floors hometown hero Brennan
Emmet Brennan, the local man who grew up a short walk from the stadium, had the honour of opening the main card. A 6-0 super-middleweight and former Olympian, he walked to the ring as if carrying the noise of the northside on his shoulders. Across from him stood Southampton’s Taylor Bevan, unbeaten at 9-0 and looking every inch the “much-fancied” visitor.
Two rounds in, the pattern was clear. Bevan went to the body early and often, reddening Brennan’s ribs and forcing him backwards. Brennan had his moments, clipping Bevan with a left hook upstairs, but the Englishman’s work downstairs told a harsher truth.
The third round broke the fight open. Brennan charged in, trying to smother the attacks, and was met by a heavy left hook that sent him crashing to the canvas. He rose, only to be dropped again as Bevan pounced. The bell rescued him, but it felt like a stay of execution rather than a reprieve.
Somehow, Brennan dug in. He not only survived the fourth, he even produced a couple of defiant flurries, the kind that draw a roar simply because everyone knows how much they cost. Still, the reality was brutal: to win, he needed only the second knockout of his professional career. Against an unbeaten puncher, that felt like a lottery ticket.
By the end of the fifth, Bevan’s body attack finally broke him down once more. A precise left hook under the elbow sent Brennan to the floor for a third time. He beat the count and slumped on his stool, patched together for one more round.
The doctors took a long look at him before the sixth. Too long, as it turned out. When the action resumed, Bevan went straight back to the body, and Brennan folded again. The referee allowed it to continue, and Bevan finished it with a thudding left hook that flattened the Dubliner. It was a chilling end to a fight that should have been stopped before that final punch.
Bevan claimed a sixth-round stoppage. Brennan, once he had been carefully checked over and cleared, left the ring to the announcement of the result. It had been a brave, overmatched effort, and Bevan showed his class by keeping his celebrations muted while the doctors did their work.
Donovan slices McKenna apart
If Brennan-Bevan was about courage and punishment, Paddy Donovan’s showcase was about control and cold precision.
The Limerick southpaw, a former world title challenger, faced Belfast’s Tyrone McKenna, a fighter with miles on the clock and a reputation for heart and chaos. On this night, chaos never got a look in.
Donovan dropped McKenna in the second and never lost his grip on the fight. He boxed with a patience that suggested a man entirely at ease with the occasion, picking his shots, refusing to rush, letting the openings come to him.
In the third, his trainer Andy Lee leaned in between rounds and told him he looked “sensational”. It wasn’t hyperbole. Donovan’s head movement was razor-sharp, his upper body slipping shot after shot as McKenna tried to drag him into a brawl. Donovan didn’t need combinations to dominate; his lead right hand alone was enough to win the exchanges, stabbing through McKenna’s guard and snapping his head back.
The pressure eventually exacted a different kind of damage. In the fourth, a terrible cut opened over McKenna’s eye, blood spraying across the ringside tables. The ringside doctor took one look and waved it off. It went down as a fifth-round stoppage, but the verdict was really about the gulf in class and timing.
For Donovan, this was arguably the best performance of his career: patient, disciplined, and mercilessly sharp.
Prospects shine early as the stage builds
Before the main card, the conveyor belt of Irish and British talent had already been rolling.
Paul Ryan took a unanimous decision over Paddy Gallagher, banking rounds and experience. Adam Olaniyan didn’t need that luxury, blasting out Matej Hudak with a first-round stoppage. Bobbi Flood boxed his way to a clear points win over Jack Swallow, while Liverpool’s Joe McGrail broke down Matthew Boreland for a fifth-round stoppage.
There was also a family thread to the night. Molly McCann, Katie Taylor’s cousin, added another win to the record, taking a unanimous decision over Sylwia Doligala in her fifth professional outing.
By the time those results were in, the undercard had already done its job: blood, knockouts, prospects moving forward, reputations tested.
The curtain waits for Taylor
All of this played out under the shadow of what comes next.
Katie Taylor, the quiet revolutionary who helped build an entire women’s boxing scene from almost nothing, will close the show against unbeaten French fighter Flora Pili for the undisputed light-welterweight title. More than 80,000 are expected to watch her final walk at Croke Park, the culmination of a career that once seemed impossible, right up until she made it real.
As the music checks echo and the last undercard fighters leave the ring, one question hangs over the stadium: on a night when everyone else has already fought like it’s their last, how will the greatest Irish fighter of them all choose to say goodbye?
