Cork's Tommy Hyde taking concept of 'hometown fight' to wonderful extremes

Gavan Casey

IN PROFESSIONAL BOXING, the term ‘hometown fight’ can be taken to describe a bout in the nearest major town or city to where a boxer has grown up.

They’re especially rare in Ireland, where the costs involved in running a pro-boxing event are prohibitive to the extent that most Irish boxers would consider themselves fortunate to fight once a year in their home country.

Cork super-middleweight Tommy Hyde (6-0, 4KOs) is pushing the envelope. On Saturday, the towering 24-year-old will take to the ring for the second time this year not only in his home city but 400 metres up the road from his family pub.

And there will be a pilgrimage from Hannah Bawn’s up the Gurranabraher Road when the local up-and-comer faces experienced Mexican Abraham Hernandez Mejia (9-5-2, 4KOs) in the Parochial Hall Arena.

“Like, I passed the Parochial Hall three times today, and I would nearly any day,” laughs Hyde, the former three-time Irish Senior finalist and 2018 champion.

“I just pass it every day. My girlfriend lives down the road from the Parochial Hall. The bar is down the road from the Parochial Hall.

“I actually started boxing upstairs there, at Sunnyside,” Hyde explains, recalling his formative days at the famed Northside club which birthed three Irish Olympians: Kieran Joyce (1984 & 1988), Paul Buttimer (1992), and Michael Roche (2000).

“There’s so much history in there for me alone, y’know what I mean? My dad boxed in there as well. And it’s just great to have pro boxing on the Northside.

“Everyone coming to support me — well, the majority of them are living a stone’s throw away from the Parochial Hall. It’s brilliant, like.”

The Hyde family has long since woven itself into the tapestry of Gurranabraher and its surrounds. Tommy’s father, Gary, is a well-known businessman around Cork but he is arguably even more widely recognised outside of Ireland as a boxing manager who has worked with a plethora of world-level talents, including all-time Cuban great Guillermo Rigondeaux.

Among Gary’s businesses is the local bar, Hannah’s, which he runs with his wife and Tommy’s mum, Fiona.

Gary and Tommy Hyde watching Guillermo Rigondeaux sparring at Freddie Roach's Wild Card Gym in Hollywood many moons ago.

Tommy with his father after his own sparring session at the Wild Card during the summer.

Tommy himself has helped out in the pub since long before he pursued boxing as a career. Its dozens of regular patrons have watched him shoot up past Gary’s hip to six-foot-four, where he’s a physically daunting proposition for any fellow 168-pound pro.

As such, the Parochial Hall up the hill lived up to its name when ‘The Governor’ boxed there for the first time — and for the first time in Cork at all — just a couple of fights ago, back in June.

“Even when I was looking out at the crowd the last time…” Hyde pauses.

Everybody was a familiar face but the thing was… everyone was so passionate. You could just see how much they wanted me to do well. What an unreal feeling that is.

“And afterwards, the buzz. They’re all looking for photographs to the point that they’d make you feel like a celebrity. Loads of them are back down to the bar.

“It makes everything I put into boxing worthwhile, honestly. And the Parochial Hall is only the starting point. We want bigger nights; big titles and bigger venues… Eventually!”

Busting ribs on a Saturday and collecting glasses on a Sunday pic.twitter.com/TSrsGha0dI

— Tommy Hyde (@tommyhyde99) April 9, 2023

Since his second pro fight in January — a sixth-round stoppage of Jiri Kroupa in Dorchester, Boston — Hyde has been back and forth between Cork and Los Angeles, where he trains at the Churchill Boxing Club in Santa Monica.

During his lengthy training camps in LA, he stays with longtime family friend Ian Buckley, whose own son, Callum Walsh (8-0, 7KOs), is “the talk of the place” as he prepares to headline The Theater at Madison Square Garden next month.

It was Buckley who introduced Hyde to his trainer, the Argentinian technician, Pedro Neme, whom Hyde says has become “one of our own” since they teamed up in the spring.

“When he’s over for my fights in Ireland, he’d come up to the bar, there, and all the regulars absolutely love him,” Hyde laughs.

“Even this week, now, they’re all asking, ‘When’s Pedro coming over?’ He’d fit in anywhere.

“But as a trainer, he’s also class. Last Wednesday before I left LA, I did a pad session with him and I was just absolutely buzzing after it. There are just so many small little adjustments: they’re simple things but they’re not actually simple unless you’re taught them. Even the fact that I’ve been boxing so long but he’s taught me that I wasn’t actually getting full extension on my shots.

“We’re working on that a lot, working on angles; so many small things that make a huge difference when you add them up.

And I’m starting to climb the ladder, now, for sure. I’m 140 in the world now out of about 1200 at the weight, and I’m only pro nine or 10 months.

Hyde on a run in Hollywood.

“The goal is — and always has been — to become a world champion,” Hyde adds. “But there are a lot of smaller steps on the way, smaller goals, and we want to achieve those too.

“Start with the smaller titles and build. Bigger fights, bigger titles; bigger venues in Cork, in Ireland, and around the world.”

3 weeks today, we’re back in action in Boston!! The Irish will be out in force on the 11th of August at the Veterans Memorial Stadium, Quincy, MA 🇺🇸 🇮🇪 ☘️ #boxing #irish #boston #fightingirish #corkcity pic.twitter.com/UtNRVJz6j7

— Tommy Hyde (@tommyhyde99) July 21, 2023

For the moment, though, the journey will continue from the local sports hall in Gurranabraher where, on Saturday night, Hyde will headline a card which will have a distinct Corkonian hue.

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Not only will he be joined on the bill by two fellow Rebel County boxers in Mitchelstown’s Danny Keating (7-0, 4KOs) and Togher’s Cathal Crowley (2-0, 1KO), but Hyde intends to once again whirl a longtime Cork nightclub banger as his ring-walk tune.

‘Make This Love Right’ is a dance song by the New Jersey garage house producer Romanthony which became a cultural craze in Hyde’s home city in the late ’90s.

More commonly referred to as ‘The Ball and Chain’, it made for an anthem in venues like Sir Henry’s on South Main Street, so much so that if you Google the song, the top result is a fan-made video from 2007 entitled ‘The Ball And Chain — Pure Cork!!’

Curiously, though, Hyde wasn’t yet born when the song enjoyed its lengthy heyday on Leeside. Almost insultingly, he maintains he’s too young to have ever even gone to Havana’s, not to mind Henry’s which closed down when he was four.

“In fairness, I haven’t had much of a nightclubbing career!” Hyde laughs. “But the song must play every single week in the bar… Any party, any 21st, 18th; it’s after playing probably two or three times in the night.

“And then when you look up the song it just says, ‘Pure Cork!’ And listen, I’m proud of where I’m from, I’m proud that I get the support that I do from Cork.

“When I came out last time and the ‘Ball and Chain’ part kicked in, it was like the venue just started bouncing. It was unbelievable.

“It must have played three or four times in the bar after the fight as well, like,” Hyde laughs. “So hopefully we’ll do the same again, now, on Saturday.”