Irish to seek titles in New Year

BOXING: AFTER several years of drought at the top end of professional boxing Ireland will have three fighters, Wayne McCullough, Neil Sinclair and Jim Rock in world title bids early next year.

McCullough has not yet worked out the details of his proposed WBO featherweight fight against Glasgow's Scott Harrison, while Sinclair this week announced his WBU welterweight title fight on February 1st in Belfast's Odyssey Arena.

The WBU belt is currently held by South Africa's Jan Bergman, who will either defend against the Belfast fighter or vacate the crown. Sinclair, who defended his British welterweight title last month on the undercard of McCullough's comeback fight against Russian Nikolai Eremeev, has been waiting some time for the chance to take the successful step up.

"I know that I will beat Bergman if he comes here, but I've heard he's not too keen," said Sinclair.

"If not, then I'll fight whoever is put in front of me. I've not looked at the rankings recently, but whoever comes to Belfast I'll beat. I won't be getting sparring in until I've found out who my opponent is, but hopefully we'll know for sure before Christmas."

The fight will be screened live on Sky Sports and if Bergman refuses to travel, Sinclair will be matched for the vacant title.

"We expect that Neil's opponent will be announced in the first week of the new year. We are in negotiations with the WBU about the title and there are matters to be sorted out," said Sports Network's Frank Warren.

Rock (20-2) will challenge WBU light-middleweight champion Takaloo (19-2). The Iranian, who is based in England, was in Belfast earlier this week in his first face-to-face with the Dubliner.

Takaloo, who won his title in July 2001 when he defeated Anthony Farnell with a first round TKO has since defended it against Scott Dixon and Gary Logan, and also hopes to land the vacant junior middleweight title.

Rock (30), a highly successful businessman in his own right outside the ring, may see this as his last chance as a number of weeks ago the Irish champion was considering quitting the sport.

The Odyssey will be set up to initially cater for a crowd of 5,000 with options of expanding the capacity to 10,000 seats.

McCullough's immediate future is less clear. The one-time world WBA bantamweight champion has now been linked to former HBO vice-president turned promoter Lou DiBella, who recently added WBA featherweight champion Derek Gainer to his stable.

DiBella is reported to be looking to stage Gainer's next defence against McCullough in Boston in March, although a spring challenge for Harrison's WBO title still looks more likely.