IRELAND’S BOXING FANS received good news today when it was announced that Willie ‘Big Bang’ Casey’s world title fight will be be covered live by a national broadcaster.

Casey fights undefeated Cuban Guillermo Rigondeaux in Citywest on March 19 for the WBA super-bantamweight title. Yet despite the importance of the bout, until today it was uncertain if fight-fans would be able to watch it live on television.

As the Irish Daily Mail reports, extended negotiations involving joint-promoters Dolphil and Nowhere 2 Hyde had unsuccessfully sought to secure national coverage of the fight.

Speaking yesterday, however, Dolphil promoter Don O’Leary was able to confirm that the cameras will in fact be there.

There will be television there, it will be one of the national broadcasters. There’s huge interest and obviously with the economic situation as well, people will like to watch it at home.

We always felt it was very, very important that there was television there.

Funds

The promoters also showed their commitment to the fight by agreeing to contribute to the production costs, reported by the Irish Daily Mail to be in the region of €75,000. O’Leary continued:

We’ve had to raise a few funds to pay for television, we’re having to pay for production ourselves so that will tell you how committed we are to putting this fight on.

We want to get it out into the households of Ireland as well and tell them the Willie Casey story, and what a good story it is.

The fight is expected to be a 4,200 sell-out and is set to be the biggest fight to take place in Ireland since Bernard Dunne defeated Ricardo Cordoba for the same title two years ago.

“It’s going to be a huge event” said Casey himself, the Limerick native adding that he hopes he can bring his best to the ring.

I’m hoping to rise to the occasion. It hasn’t got to me yet. I’m not getting nervous or anything yet, I’m just looking at the fight ahead.

As my coach always said to me: ‘Rigondeaux is the only thing you’ve to worry about.’

Casey’s opponent is a double Olympic gold medal winner and two-time world champion. And even though the Cuban is undefeated as a professional, Casey knows he is still in with a shot.

One thing I know is that he is not unbeatable.

Confirmation of the fight’s coverage is expected on Monday, with RTE the likely broadcaster according to the Mail.

Read more in the print edition of today’s Irish Daily Mail >