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Bernard Dunne (born 6 February 1980) is an Irish former
professional boxer Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regulatory autho ...
and a former
WBA (Regular) The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is the oldest and one of four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Council (WBC), International Boxi ...
, and
European European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...
Super Bantamweight Super bantamweight, also known as junior featherweight, is a weight class in professional boxing, contested from and up to . There were attempts by boxing promoters in the 1920s to establish this weight class, but few sanctioning organizations or ...
champion. On Saturday 21 March 2009, Dunne defeated
Ricardo Cordoba Ricardo Alberto Córdoba Mosque, more commonly known as Ricardo Cordoba, (born 11 October 1983 in Santa Marta, Panama, Santa Marta, Panama) is a Panamanian boxing, professional boxer who fights in the super bantamweight division. Professional ca ...
in the 11th round to become the
WBA (Regular) The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is the oldest and one of four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Council (WBC), International Boxi ...
super bantamweight champion in a fight that won
ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
's 2009 Fight of The Year with 6 knockdowns occurring in the fight between the two fighters (4 for Dunne and 2 for Cordoba). Dunne lost his title on 26 September 2009 in the 02 Dublin. Dunne retired on 19 February 2010. In November 2009, Irish publishers Liberties Press released the first biography of Dunne. Entitled ''Bernard Dunne: The Ecstasy and the Agony'', it is an up-to-date account of Dunne's beginnings until his defeat to
Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym Chalermwong Udomna ( th, เฉลิมวงศ์ อุดมนา; formerly ''Prakob Udomna'' (ประกอบ อุดมนา)), who boxes as Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym, (พูนสวัสดิ์ กระทิงแดงย ...
. In 2012, Dunne was an analyst on the
2012 Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
boxing coverage on
RTÉ Sport RTÉ Sport is a department of Irish public broadcaster RTÉ. The department provides sporting coverage through a number of platforms including RTÉ Radio, RTÉ Television, RTÉ.ie, RTÉ Player Sport and RTÉ Mobile. RTÉ holds the television ...
.


Amateur career

Dunne was born in Neilstown,
Clondalkin Clondalkin ( ; ) is a suburban town situated 10 km south-west of Dublin city centre, Ireland, under the administrative jurisdiction of South Dublin. It features an 8th-century round tower that acts as a focal point for the area. Clondalk ...
,
County Dublin "Action to match our speech" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg , map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...
. He boxed at amateur level for
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
where he had a record of 119–11, captured 13 Irish titles but did not qualify for the
2000 Summer Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...
in Sydney.


Professional career

Dunne began his professional boxing career in December 2001 in the United States, winning his first fight in Feather Falls Casino in
Oroville, California Oroville (''Oro'', Spanish for "Gold" and ''Ville'', French for "town") is the county seat of Butte County, California, United States. The population of the city was 15,506 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, up from 13,004 in the 200 ...
. In LA, Bernard trained under the world-renowned boxing coach
Freddie Roach Frederick Steven Roach (born March 5, 1960) is an American boxing trainer and former professional boxer. Roach is widely regarded as one of the best boxing trainers of all time. He is the enduring boxing coach of the eight-division world champio ...
in the Wild Card Boxing Gym, training with many champions including
Manny Pacquiao Emmanuel Dapidran Pacquiao Sr. (; born December17, 1978) is a Filipino politician and former professional boxer. Nicknamed "PacMan", he is regarded as one of the greatest professional boxers of all time. He served as a Senator of the Philip ...
. Dunne won his first fourteen bouts in the United States before returning to Dublin under manager Brian Peters. Peters negotiated a deal with Irish public broadcaster RTÉ whereby Dunne's fights in Dublin would be shown live on national television. It was the first such deal for an Irish boxer. Dunne won the lowly regarded IBC super bantamweight title by beating Sean Hughes in the
National Stadium Many countries have a national sport stadium, which typically serves as the primary or exclusive home for one or more of a country's national representative sports teams. The term is most often used in reference to an association football stadiu ...
in Dublin. Dunne won the European Super bantamweight title on 11 November 2006 beating
Esham Pickering Esham Pickering (born 7 August 1976) is a British former professional boxer who competed from 1996 to 2014. He challenged once for the WBO bantamweight title in 2000. At regional level, he held the British super bantamweight title twice betwee ...
on points in his home town of Dublin. In March 2007 he defended the title by technical knock-out over Yersin Jailauov in the third round, in a mandatory
EBU The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who are members of the Co ...
title defence. He followed that streak in June 2007, when he defended his EBU title, defeating Walstad Reider by unanimous decision. The EBU made
Kiko Martínez Francisco "Kiko" Martínez Sánchez (born 7 March 1986) is a Spanish professional boxer. He is a world champion in two weight classes, having held the IBF featherweight title from 2021 to 2022, and the IBF super-bantamweight title from 2013 to ...
the
mandatory challenger In professional boxing and some other combat sports, a mandatory challenger is an opponent whom a champion must either fight or be forced to vacate their title as champion. A mandatory defence is the opposite of a voluntary defence, where the champi ...
for Dunne's European super bantamweight title. Martinez and Dunne clashed on 25 August 2007 at the Point Theatre, Dublin, Ireland. This was Martinez's first fight outside of Spain. On the night of the fight the Point Depot filled with expectant Irish boxing fans and the fight was beamed live on RTÉ, the Irish national television broadcaster. The fight started with Dunne keeping his guard low and circling Martinez. However, Martinez quickly had Dunne on the canvas with an overhand right. Dunne appeared stunned and unaware of what had happened. Dunne beat the count but was floored twice more before the referee stopped the fight within only 90 seconds of round one. The Martinez camp stated that they knew there would be a first round victory and that many of them had placed bets worth thousands of pounds with Irish bookmakers at odds of 66/1 that Martinez would win in the first round. Dunne had next been scheduled to fight Marcos Jiménez 13–1 (8 KO) of the
Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...
at the National Stadium on 12 July 2008. However, his opponent pulled out of the fight. His replacement was Damian David Marchiano 15–4–1 (5 KO) of
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
. Marchiano came into the bout on the back of an unsuccessful attempt at taking
Silence Mabuza Silence Mabuza (born 18 September 1977 in Tsakane, South Africa) is a professional boxer in the bantamweight (118 lb) division, and as of 6 Jan. 2008, is a former two time holder of the International Boxing Organization's world Bantamweight ...
's IBO Bantamweight title. Dunne won the 10 round bout on points. On 21 March 2009 Dunne faced off against
Panamanian Panamanians (Spanish: ''Panameños'') are people identified with Panama, a transcontinental country in Central America (a region within North America) and South America, whose connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For mo ...
WBA Super Bantamweight world champion
Ricardo Cordoba Ricardo Alberto Córdoba Mosque, more commonly known as Ricardo Cordoba, (born 11 October 1983 in Santa Marta, Panama, Santa Marta, Panama) is a Panamanian boxing, professional boxer who fights in the super bantamweight division. Professional ca ...
in the O2 Arena, Dublin. This was the first world boxing championship fight in Dublin for 13 years and would win ESPN's Fight of the Year. Dunne went on to win in a thrilling fight knocking Cordoba out in the 11th round marking the end to a historic day for Irish sports as the international rugby team had won a Six Nations Grand Slam earlier in the day.
Jimmy Magee Jimmy Magee (31 January 1935 – 20 September 2017) was an Irish sports broadcaster, known as The Memory Man, he spent over half a century in sports broadcasting, and presented radio and television coverage of the Olympic Games since 1968 and the ...
pointed out that 61 years previously Ireland won a Six Nations Grand Slam and a Boxing World Title on the same day. On 10 April 2009 Dunne was crowned boxer of the month for March by the World Boxing Association. In May 2009, Dunne was offered £200,000 by promoter
Frank Maloney Kellie Maloney (born Francis Maloney, 23 January 1953) is an English boxing manager and promoter, and television personality. She managed Lennox Lewis between 1989 and 2001, who earned the title of undisputed heavyweight championship of the wo ...
to defend his world title against Commonwealth Super-Bantamweight holder
Rendall Munroe Rendall Munroe (born 1 June 1980 in Leicester, England) is a retired English super bantamweight boxer. Munroe currently resides in Leicester. He is also a former holder of the EBU and Commonwealth Super Bantamweight titles. His dayjob as a bin ...
, but Dunne said no. On 20 August 2009, it was confirmed that Dunne would make the first defence of his World title at The O2 Arena, Dublin on 26 September 2009 against the number one rated contender
Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym Chalermwong Udomna ( th, เฉลิมวงศ์ อุดมนา; formerly ''Prakob Udomna'' (ประกอบ อุดมนา)), who boxes as Poonsawat Kratingdaenggym, (พูนสวัสดิ์ กระทิงแดงย ...
. Dunne subsequently lost his belt to Poonsawat by way of the WBA three knockdown rule in the third round of the fight. In late January 2010 Dunne was named Boxer of the Year at the Irish National Boxing Awards. Three weeks later on 19 February he announced his retirement from the sport.


International Championship Belts


Gaelic games involvement

Dunne worked with
Davy Fitzgerald David Dermot Fitzgerald (born 2 August 1971) is an Irish hurling manager and former player. He has been manager of the Waterford county team since 2022, having previously managed the team between 2008 and 2011. As a player, he is widely consid ...
when Fitzgerald managed the
Waterford county hurling team The Waterford county hurling team represents Waterford in hurling and is governed by Waterford GAA, the county board of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The team competes in the three major annual inter-county competitions; the All-Ireland Senio ...
. Dunne was involved the
Galway county hurling team The Galway county hurling team ( ) represents County Galway, Galway in hurling and is governed by Galway GAA, the County board (Gaelic games), county board of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The team competes in the three major annual inter-co ...
's search for a new manager in 2021. When Fitzgerald's name was mentioned as a possibility, Dunne withdrew from the interview panel Galway had appointed to decide (the job was ultimately given to
Henry Shefflin Henry Shefflin (born 11 January 1979) is an Irish hurling manager and former player who is the current manager of the Galway senior hurling team. In his playing career he was nicknamed "King Henry" because of his directive style, dominance, com ...
). Dunne worked with Jim Gavin as the senior
Dublin county football team The Dublin county football team represents Dublin in men's Gaelic football and is governed by Dublin GAA, the county board of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The team competes in the three major annual inter-county competitions; the All-Irela ...
's performance and lifestyle coach from 2013 onwards, having previously worked alongside Gavin with the county under-21 team. He left during the 2017 season. Dunne joined the
Galway county football team The Galway county football team ( ) represents Galway in men's Gaelic football and is governed by Galway GAA, the county board of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The team competes in the three major annual inter-county competitions; the All-Ir ...
in 2022.


References


External links

*
M Donnelly (sponsor) page on Bernard Dunne. News, Results and Pictures
– 26 September 2009 {{DEFAULTSORT:Dunne, Bernard 1980 births Living people Dublin county football team Galway county football team Irish male boxers People from Clondalkin Sportspeople from South Dublin (county) Boxers from County Dublin Super-bantamweight boxers Waterford county hurling team World Boxing Association champions