You like your steak rare and your baby sweet-corn al dente? The Burlington Hotel tomorrow night might just be your hill of beans. "Punch and munch" returns to Dublin nightlife - that steel-stomach mix of food and fighting, both served up on a plate, is, like most things in boxing, making a comeback. The format is fighting fit, has been training hard, ready to go and never felt better.
It's fat cigar, blood on the dress shirt, professional boxing and it's muscling in on a slice of the city's ever-varied light entertainment pie. In the first promotion of its kind since gas-lighting disappeared from the streets, Welshman Paul Boyce, in association with Dunshaughlin publican Brian Peters, has brought a four-fight bill as part of an evening's miscellany of fun.
Combine a black-tie dress code, former Welsh rugby union captain David Pickering as the after dinner speaker, a stand-up comedian and card girls with Dublin middleweight Jim Rock topping the evening's menu and you have what is called a dinner-show promotion. It may not be a night for the politically correct, but when in the last 20 years has the much maligned pro-boxing game ever been anything other than x-rated?
With a specially constructed ring in one of the hotel banquet halls, over 400 well-fed patrons paying £50 a head are expected to support what the promoters hope to be a regular event in Dublin.
"I don't think it's ever been done before. It's the old sporting club style. It swings along all night. I can't not see it working in Dublin. I've been planning this one for two years," says Boyce. "People are looking for more entertainment. You've got to provide them with both these days."
Middleweight Rock, a.k.a. "The Pink Panther", who has a successful car dealership which allows him to box more for the delight than the purse, faces Sheffield's Jason Collins with US-based Irish cruiserweight Cathal O'Grady taking on England's Tony Dowling.
Mark Winters from Antrim faces England's David Kirk over six rounds in a light-welterweight bout with two British boxers, Darren Williams and Richard Inquieti, scheduled for four rounds in a light-middleweight contest.
"Most of these type of events are six-round fights to encourage professionals coming into the game. They have always been the breeding ground for young fighters," says Boyce. "The next ones will probably be in the autumn and before Christmas and we'll possibly do one next year on the Friday before the Welsh international rugby match at Lansdowne Road."
Rock, the reigning Irish light-middleweight champion, and O'Grady are probably more established than the usual aspiring fighters who come through the "punch-and-munch" circuit. Rock has recently returned from the US where, having sparred with the former world champion James "lights out" Toney, he successfully beat Hollister Elliott on the same card that O'Grady defeated journeyman-fighter Jose Torres.
The promotion is sanctioned by the Boxing Union of Ireland (BUI) and all appropriate medical personnel will be in place.
