Watch Irish Boxer Fight for Title Live on Web
The European super bantamweight title fight between Ireland’s Bernard Dunne and Norwegian Reidar Walstad is being webcast LIVE by RTE this Saturday, June 23, 2007.
The fight takes place in Dublin’s Point Theatre, on what is called the Hunky Dory Fight Night.
UPDATE: Dunne wins in a points victory, the judges scoring the fight 118-111, 116-112 and 115-113 but for some reason the European number three Walstad was allowed to continue with a really ugly deep cut over his left eye.
Ireland’s national radio and television broadcasting service does a lot of live sports webcasting these days, but the major GAA games and international soccer games are only made available to what it terms “the island of Ireland”, while around the globe Setanta cleans up and wonders why it’s called SATANta.
No such restriction though for the boxing, with the Dunne-Walstad clash going out worldwide. Presumably Setanta don’t see much money in it. Whatever the reason, fair play to RTE for broadcasting it over the web.
The fight is scheduled for 9.30pm to 12.30am - those are Irish times, in Kansas City in the Central Time Zone during summer they would be 3:30pm to 6:30pm. As that’s three hours I presume we’re getting to see more than the top billed fight.
Before Dunne and the Norwegian both turned professional Walstad beat the Dubliner. It was all the way back in the 1998 European Amateur Championships. Since turning pro Dunne has racked up 23 straight wins, and this is his second defence of his European title.
Oisin Fagan who fought in Wichita, Kansas last month, is also on the night’s bill.
And making history on the night - though I don’t know if the webcast covers every fight - is Jill Emery and Angel McKenzie, the first female professional bout to be held in the Republic of Ireland.
When I watched the RTE evening news from Ireland today the first three sports stories were about hurling, boxing and horse racing. I miss the variety of sports that are covered in Ireland.
There’s more about the fight on RTE
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