The wheels of time turn slowly in Worcester, a sleepy industrial city 50 miles west of Boston. So slowly that few seem to have noticed that promoter Ken Kosla's St Patrick's Day boxing card tonight is taking place a week late. Jim Rock and Cathal O'Grady don't appear to mind, since it's more of a celebration than they'd have found back home this year.
Rock, the reigning Irish light-middleweight champion, fought in Worcester last December, when he handily outpointed South Boston's Tommy Attardo.
O'Grady, the 1996 All-Ireland heavyweight medallist now campaigning as a cruiserweight, also fought in America last year, knocking out Casey Truesdale in three rounds in New York on September 8th before taking the winter off to devote his attention to new baby daughter Katie Jane.
Showcased in tonight's featured bouts, Rock (17-1, of Castleknock) and O'Grady (142, from Moy Valley) have been matched against a pair of durable if unthreatening New England journeymen. Rock's opponent, Hollister Elliott of Dorchester, Massachusetts is 512-1, but has gone the distance with world contender Ray Oliveira and, more recently, Denmark's Tonton Semakula.
O'Grady will be up against Hartford's Jose Torres, who is 10-44-3 lifetime, and unless something goes terribly wrong, he doesn't figure to improve that record tonight.
The colourful Rock, who calls himself "The Pink Panther", and enters the ring to the Henry Mancini tune of the same name, has been accompanied to Worcester by his Belfast-based trainer John Breen. O'Grady recently enlisted in the stable of former Steve Collins trainer Freddie Roach, and prepared for tonight's bout at Roach's California gym, where he sparred with, among others, former world champion James Toney.
Roach was to fly to Detroit this weekend with Toney, who fights fellow contender Saul Montana there Monday night, and was still trying to make arrangements to get to Worcester for O'Grady's bout.
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