Tyson Fury against Conor McGregor is a fight that will never happen in any ring or Octagon but there could yet be a race to stage the first (legitimate) fight to be staged in Croke Park since Mohammed Ali in 1972.
McGregor and the UFC have been talking up the prospect again of staging a fight at the headquarters of the GAA but no approach has been made to the association and it is perhaps a less likely scenario given the greater need to fight late for US TV audiences.
Fury though could yet be a possibility.
He spoke on RTÉ Radio yesterday about his Irish heritage with his Father’s family from Galway and his Mother’s from Belfast, as well as his claim to be an Irish Heavyweight Champion of the World.
When Ali fought in ’72 the crowd was less that 25,000 but it remains an iconic moment in the history of the stadium and the gloves and shorts he wore that day are in the Croke Park Museum.
Boxing is a numbers game and promoters will be wary looking at the failure of Andy Lee to make enough early sales to secure a World Title fight for Limerick earlier this year.
That said we have a tradition for boxing which will be at a peak next summer with the Olympics and Bernard Dunne successfully staged World Title fights albeit in the 3 Arena as opposed to the bigger stage of Croke Park.
It may of course all be huff and bluster but who knows, and Fury is a more likely winner in our opinion, whether in fight terms, well he is nearly twice the size, or more relevantly in this case in the prospect of staging a ‘Fight Night’.
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