By Terence Dooley
Hale’s Kieran Farrell turned professional in January last year and the diminutive 19-year-old pocket battleship has forged a 4-0 (1) record during his first year as a pro. Kieran, who campaigns in the super-flyweight division, made an impression on his pro debut by going for Gary Sheil with a controlled, clinical ferocity.
Farrell hopes to continue learning his trade in 2010. The young boxer is trained by Bobby Rimmer and guided by the experience manager and promoter Steve Wood. The relative lack of depth in the British 115lb division could see Farrell fight for a title sooner rather than later. Kieran, however, is keen to use these early days in the pro ranks to supplement the knowledge he picked up in an all-too-brief amateur career.
“I got into boxing when I was seven and loved it from the start. I got sick of the amateurs and decided to come up here,” said Kieran when explaining his decision to turn pro with Rimmer.
“My amateur record weren’t that good to be honest – I took it more as a hobby at the start. Then I took it seriously and got to three national finals. When I started getting serious about it I started to do well and that made me work hard when doing the runs and the rest of it.”
He added: “I won 18 of 33 amateur fights and a lot of my losses were bad decisions. If I genuinely thought I’d lost those ones I wouldn’t have worried as much but I thought I won a lot of those decisions and that kept me going. Then I started getting the decisions and hurting fighters. Flyweights aren’t often big punchers and I’ve never been hurt, down or rocked in fights or sparring - so I’m confident in my own chin.
“It was hard to get fights anyway because a lot of people weren’t fighting me. They couldn’t get me any fights - people would pull out. I was getting more experience in sparring and decided to turn pro.”
Kieran’s decision to turn over was crystallised during sparring sessions with then-British champion Chris Edwards. “Chris was British champion and I did good against him”, explained Farrell, “so I’m just starting out and have been doing well.”
Farrell hit Sheil with impunity during that heady professional bow; the fighter believes that he has slowed things down a little since then. “I was hyped up for my debut, perhaps too hyped up, but he hadn’t been stopped by Don Broadhurst and Scott Quigg so I wanted to make a bit of a statement and announce my arrival on the scene and went for it,” said Farrell, who stopped his man at 1:30 of round three.
Subsequent bouts have seen Farrell extended the full four-round distance; he believes that his experienced opponents see him as an easy night’s work only to change this perception once Kieran starts throwing his own fists about.
“I think people see me and think they’ll get a win. Then they start getting a bit upset after a few rounds!” he laughed before telling Boxingscene that he has the perfect support system for a budding professional.
“We’ve got good lads like Brian Rose, Jack Arnfield, Jon Kays and Tony Jeffries at this gym and Bobby has built up a proper camp. Steve [Wood] is a mate to me as well. I can ring Steve up for help whenever I need him and he’s given me a lot of fights so I try to sell a lot of tickets for him,” he explained.
“I can’t say I’ve got title plans just yet and Steve says they have to wait until I’m twenty to get me on the Sky shows so I’ll just get some experience, take every fight as it comes, when I get up the rankings I’ll start to make my plans.”
The boxer is 5’ 7’’, bottle-white, and looks like he should still be at school. Bobby Rimmer assured me from the start that Kieran may look like a choirboy but turns into a tiger when he gets into the ring. Indeed, shouts of “Do your parents know you are out this late?” went up at Farrell’s debut fight, the boxer laughed before revealing that his parents do know he is out late at night and they are fully supportive of his turning over at such a young age.
“My mum and dad love that I’m a boxer,” he revealed. “My dad and my brother are my biggest fans and they try to get rid of tickets for me. I did 250 tickets for my debut and people were still trying to get them when they were getting on the coaches and on the door.”
Mark Thompson, Hale’s other budding British hope, may have to share the local headlines if Farrell keeps winning in 2010.
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