Casey buckles with body blows

BOXING: WBA WORLD TITLE FIGHT:FOR THE entire evening, until two minutes 38 seconds into the fight, most people had suspended if not their belief in Willie Casey, then their logic. It was, after all, boxing, as Casey had said all week, and anything could happen.

But Saturday night in Citywest was a short, sharp illustration of brutal realism.

Once the fight had begun, fantasy or suspense were nowhere to be seen.

For a stunning Cuban super bantamweight called Guillermo “Rigo” Rigondeaux, his career profile arcs even higher into stardom along with the WBA world title belt Casey had sought to take from him.

For the Limerickman, a review of where he goes from here will take some time to work out after all the promise, the hype, the speed and the technical excellence came to visit him in one swirling round.

“Everyone thought he’d come out and go around the ring,” said Rigo’s American coach Ronnie Shields, swirling a finger like a dancer. “He don’t do that. Anytime you come to anyone else’s country and you have the skill set of Rigo, you take the guy out. No one’s going to beat this guy.”

Shields had said before the fight that he did not want Casey to feed off the atmosphere or take energy from the hugely-partisan support.

Casey was equally as prosaic and didn’t try to wrap up the first-round defeat in anything but a series of harsh lessons and barely memorable blows.

“His shots came from every angle. He can stand, he can fight and he can bang,” said the 29-year-old.

“He’s a world-class operator. I didn’t realise how strong he was. It was always about the one who was going to be caught first. I was the one.”

The two southpaws touched gloves and it went downhill from there for Ireland’s hope.

Rigondeaux immediately let go a barrage of body shots and Casey winced. The Irishman tried to cover up and run, but the Cuban knew he had hurt him.

A left put Casey down on one knee, but he was up immediately and alert to continue. At that stage Rigo knew not only was the Irishman hurting but in deep trouble.

“For sure I wanted to finish it, he had the whole home town,” said the Cuban afterwards. “That body shot is one of my favourite punches.”

Rigo had achieved in a few minutes what his coach had asked him to do. He had totally silenced what was two minutes earlier a screaming, heaving Convention Centre in west Dublin.

The jarring blow was a crashing hook to the side of his head that momentarily separated Casey from his senses as he fell to the canvas again. He bravely tried to continue and forced a couple of unconvincing moves to demonstrate his health. But there was no recovering.

Unable to defend himself, the referee rightly stepped in. All we could think was what they had said about the brilliance of the Cuban was true.

“It was the body shot I got caught with first,” said Casey. “It took me a minute to recover from it. I didn’t think I’d recover from it but I did, and just as I did I got caught with another hook over the top.

“After the body shot the whole body just tensed up. You can’t breathe,” he explained. “I’ve seen people getting caught with those shots and going down and not getting back up. I ran. I went on the back foot. He knew. He tried to finish me and he didn’t. I got over that one. I got back on the bike again and he caught me with a couple of hooks.”

There are those still wondering, and perhaps Casey too, how he got to this chance after only 11 professional fights.

His difficulty was in coming up against a fighter, managed by Corkman Gary Hyde, who had become the world champion in only his seventh pro fight.

His first was in May 2009, his eighth on Saturday night.

“He was letting me know he was standing there with me,” said Casey. “He’s one of the world’s best amateurs and he brought all that in with him and he used it.”

No gripes from Casey. No contest for champion Rigondeaux.

Katie Taylor again graced the professional scene with a bout with Spanish champion Maria Del Carmen Moreno and surprised few with a unanimous win. Taylor had her opponent on the canvas in the third round as well as comprehensively out-boxing her over the four two-minute rounds.