David Brophy is constantly reciting the oft-repeated mantra ‘one fight at a time’ to himself but, despite the repetition, it remains easier said than done for the 26-year-old to look no further than his next fight. Tonight Brophy will take on Kiril Psonko from Lithuania at the Crowne Plaza in Glasgow but it is his next fight, which was announced just last week, that could really propel the Caldercruix fighter into the big time. On March 17, Brophy will take on the Australian Zac Dunn in Melbourne for the Commonwealth super-middle weight title but, despite the scale of this fight, the Scot is cognisant of just how vital it is for him to remain focused on tonight. He even sacrificed his Christmas dinner a few weeks ago to ensure he was in the best shape possible. “I’m feeling good and I trained right through Christmas and New Year and that kept the weight off,” Brophy said. “It’s tough to train through Christmas because I’m partial to a few pigs in blankets but I had to sacrifice them this year. I’m expecting a hard fight in Glasgow but I’ve been sparring well so hopefully everything goes smoothly and then I can look forward to the future.”
However, Brophy admits that banishing his Commonwealth title shot from his mind has been nigh on impossible. Despite the fight being on the home patch of Dunn, who has a 23-0 winning record and is a former IBO super middleweight title holder, Brophy is itching to get stuck in. “This is really exciting for me and it has been very hard to put out of my head,” he said. “As soon as I was offered the fight, even though it’s in Australia and I’ll be going right into the lion’s den, I took it. It doesn’t bother me that it’s on the other side of the world- these are brilliant experiences and if you don’t want to take these fights then what’s the point of being in this game? This is a big chance for me- it could change the rest of my life and certainly the rest of my boxing life because if I win this title then it’ll lead to bigger things.”
Brophy is something of an exception in his sport in that he hasn’t spent his life striving to be an elite boxer. In his previous sporting incarnation, he was a footballer for Dundee United but after a double leg-break in 2010 ended that career, he opted to swop the camaraderie of football for one of the loneliest sports of them all. However, Brophy believes that the independence of an individual sport is far better suited to his personality and he rarely wonders what may have been had he continued in football. “In boxing, you go into the ring alone and there’s nobody else to praise or to blame,” he said. “If you win that title then it’s all been down to you and I like that. As a footballer, I was an individual player even though I was in a team and if I’m honest, I probably wasn’t the best footballer. I got to where I was through sheer hard work- I was always the fittest guy but I was in teams with players like Scott Allen and he could do things that I could never dream of doing.”
However, footballers are guaranteed a wage whatever happens whereas if Brophy doesn’t fight then there’s no money coming in. It increases the pressure but also, believes Brophy, focuses the mind on the job in hand. “In football, there’ll be players who might fake an injury to get out of training and they’ll still get paid for sitting on the bench but if we don’t fight then we don’t get paid,” he said. “I believe that the worst treated person in boxing is the boxer- he’s the last to get paid and the last person to find out what’s happening. So when opportunities come around that can give you a better future then you have to take them and then just hope that you get out of the sport with your sanity.”
Brophy’s only loss in his 19 pro fights is to George Groves, which came at the O2 Arena in London last April. It is a defeat which still hurts the Scot but his never-say-die mentality has ensured that he has bounced back admirably from that disappointment. It is this determination which will, Brophy believes, ensure that the Commonwealth super-middle weight belt is residing in Scotland in a few months time. “The Groves defeat was hard and afterwards, it was the loneliest shower I’ve ever had,” he said. “But the way I was brought up hardened me- my dad was a tough guy and whatever happened, he would tell me to shut up and get on with it and that’s good preparation for being in this sport because in boxing, you just can’t feel sorry for yourself. 2017 needs to be my year- I want belts and I want titles and the fight in March is a real opportunity for me. To win this Commonwealth belt is a hard ask but I’m up for it.”
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