Why the Khan fight was the best thing to ever happen to Paul McCloskey - including the stoppage
1. Getting a world title fight
Paul McCloskey was rather fortunate to get the fight in the first place.
Undefeated European champion, yes. But he hadn’t beaten any one who was world class at the time he boxed them. His best victory is probably an eleventh round win against 34-year-old Giuseppe Lauri. To put it into perspective, Junior Witter destroyed a 26-year-old version of Lauri in two rounds. This was a voluntary defence and Khan could have picked somebody else.
2. Money
McCloskey got the biggest pay day of his career by a Dungiven mile. The Khan 'controversy' might lead to better pay days in the future than he otherwise could have expected.
3. Publicity and marketability
Hardly anyone in the UK (outside of Ulster) other than hardcore boxing fans knew who Paul McCloskey was. He’s now had a huge amount of publicity which will no doubt add to his future marketability.
4. A future homecoming…without having left the country
He’s apparently already had a great welcome home. Now, despite losing every round on every judge’s scorecard and not doing much in attacking terms, he can have a potentially lucrative and triumphant ‘homecoming’ fight – despite only having travelled about 200 miles within the same country (that’s the UK, by the way).
5. He almost certainly would have lost clearly had he not been cut
Had the fight continued, it’s possible that McCloskey might have turned things around. It is unfortunate that his corner wasn’t given a chance to work on his cut and he was, perhaps unfairly, denied the chance to change the pattern of the fight or, start as you mean to go on, win a round. But the likelihood of him doing so based on the evidence of the previous six rounds was negligible. What was far more likely was that Khan would have won a shut out points decision or stopped him – removing any doubt about the outcome whilst simultaneously removing a lot of the injustice which had led to an increase in McCloskey’s popularity.
6. The ‘plan’ can’t be proved to be false
McCloskey did very, very little in terms of offense. He barely laid a decent shot on Khan. Yet the nature of the stoppage allows him to claim that this was all a grand plan…that he was waiting until the late rounds so Khan would tire, like he did against Maidana. Even if this was the plan, why do so little in the interim? Who on earth has a plan that involves giving away the first six rounds? And Khan didn’t tire against Maidana. Quite the opposite – it was his incredible conditioning that got him through a very stormy spell. McCloskey was very awkward and made Khan look bad – but the Ulsterman gave the champion no trouble of his own and the stoppage has allowed a huge amount of conjecture to be aired about what McCloskey was going to do at some point in the future…which never materialised. The challenger had seventeen minutes to do something and couldn’t. But seeing as it was stopped, this idea of grand design can be perpetuated.
7. He’s assured of legendary status in Northern Ireland
The admittedly unfortunate ending to the fight means McCloskey will always have the ‘What if?’ factor – he wouldn’t have had the same mystique had the contest been allowed to continue. By the time he’s 75, his legend will have grown so much they’ll erect a statue of him in Dungiven. It will portray ‘Dudey’, face covered in claret, standing over a prostrate Khan a la Ali-Liston II whilst a referee and doctor try to drag the otherwise certain victor out of the ring.
Barry Hearn did a fantastic job of talking up a rematch on Saturday night. There won’t be one and there shouldn’t be one, either. It’s completely understandable that Paul McCloskey feels a deep sense of frustration. But it will prove to be the best night he’s ever had.
