The wait is finally over for undefeated super featherweight prospect “Fearless” Feargal McCrory. The Tyrone native ends a three-year layoff on Aug. 12 with a scheduled eight-rounder at the Amazura Concert Hall in Jamaica, Queens. His opponent is to be announced.
McCrory, who’s 11-0 with five KOs, last fought on May 18, 2019 when he scored a first round TKO of Elvis Guillen at Belfast’s Europa Hotel. He moved States-side early this year after John Duddy, the former world middleweight contender turned actor, agreed to train him.
The southpaw McCrory began working out at the Trinity boxing club in lower Manhattan, although he’s currently in Northern Ireland preparing for his US debut on Aug. 12.
“He’s been sparring and training back home in Tyrone,” Duddy told the Echo. “We were training a lot earlier this year, but he wasn’t fighting, so he went back home. He’ll come back probably a week or two before the fight to finish training here.”
McCrory was a four-division Irish national amateur champion with titles in the bantamweight, super bantamweight, featherweight and light welterweight divisions. He represented Ireland internationally, fighting in tournaments in Ukraine, Germany and Greece among other nations.
He made his pro debut in Nov. 2015, stopping Hungarian Zsolt Schmidt in the first round at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall. Nine of McCory’s next 10 fights would be in Belfast and one in Tallaght.
Fight number 12 was supposed to be on the undercard of Michael Conlan’s then annual St. Patrick’s Day appearance at New York’s Madison Square Garden. McCrory had spent 11 weeks training in Brooklyn under Andre Rozier.
But it was March 2020 and a pandemic – unprecedented in a century – was sweeping around the globe. COVID-19 scuttled McCrory’s U.S. debut and almost his career.
“At the start of the pandemic, I was training for six or seven months and getting offers – but they would fall through,” he said last February.
Eventually, he lost heart and focused on his job as a grounds man. “At one time it was in doubt that I’d fight again, but the hunger and desire was there.
“I reached out to John [Duddy] on Facebook and asked if he’d be interested in working with me.”
The “Derry Destroyer” was, and McCrory’s career is back on track.
