By Dean Parr
On Friday night, Wales' Gary Buckland, now 18-1 (6 KOs), out-pointed the previously unbeaten Sam Rukundo in what BoxingScene labelled the 'fight of the night'. After the contest, the 'Dynamo' and his trainer caught up with us to discuss the bout.
“I was very happy with my performance,” an exhausted Buckland declared. “It was my first twelve rounder, so I'm happy to get that underneath my belt, and he was my first southpaw too. He was an awkward fighter as well, and a good one at that. I find fighting southpaws in general pretty awkward, but I didn't think it was going to be like that.”
In the build up to the fight, Rukundo, despite reaching the quarterfinals of the Olympics, was something of an unknown. Buckland admitted this made the fight tougher. “Yeah, it was definitely hard going in not knowing much about him,” said the Cardiff native. “I tried to get him on YouTube, but I couldn't get anything at all. All I could get was his photo; that was it.”
So after such an impressive win, with him even scoring a knockdown in the first en route to a unanimous decision win, where does Buckland go from here? “Lee McAllister is the one I want next,” revealed Gary. “I think he's got Ben Murphy on April 3rd, but whenever he's ready, I'm ready.”
All in all, Buckland summarised that this was a fantastic learning curve for him. “I've done a couple of ten rounders before”, asserted Gary, “but to get my first twelve out of the way with an opponent who was undefeated was a great experience.
Buckland's trainer, Tony Borg, was also thrilled with how the fight ended. “I'm over the moon,” enthused Tony. “I was expecting him to win. I'd looked the other guy up and there was no information on him. I couldn't get to see any videos of him, but in the end he turned out to be a quality fighter with a good chin. He was unbeaten and went to the Olympics so he had good pedigree, but I guess Gary Buckland's the 'Welsh Dynamo'. He's always got so much left in the tank,” revealed Borg.
In the end, the fight turned out to be a gruelling war, with the workrate and effort of Buckland working against the slippery counters of Rukundo. So was Borg expecting such a slog?
“No, I wasn't,” he readily admitted. “Gary started off well, but then we had a problem with the gumshield which he's had before but he doesn't listen. It was a good win, but at the end of the day he could have suffered with that, but apart from that [his mouthpiece coming out three times over the course of the fight] he's done everything right.”
Now, he also believes his man is ready to move up a level and take some gold home; Borg stated: “He's fought for the Welsh title and won it, won the Celtic title and defended it, beat Henry Castle in a British Eliminator and won in a Commonwealth title final Eliminator, so when's someone going to take him up on a title fight? We'll take any of them: McAllister, [John] Murray or [Anthony] Mezzache - just give this lad a fight!” blazed Borg.
