THE ROAD TO boxing world honours is narrow if rarely straight, but should Kilcullen’s Dennis ‘Hurricane’ Hogan achieve his childhood dream in the next 12 months, he’ll have circumnavigated the globe en route.
When Hogan arrived in Queensland, Australia, six years ago, you might have forgiven those Down Under for perceiving him to be a walking stereotype; fighting Irishmen with a grá for the black stuff are rarely destined for greatness, but Hogan, who turned one such passion into a profession on arrival, binned the latter to become a headliner as opposed to just another headline from half a world away.
He’s on the home stretch now: on 14 October, Hogan defends his WBO Oriental belt against Japan’s Yuki Nonaka at Brisbane’s Convention and Exhibition Centre knowing victory will propel him to near the top of the world-title queue. English due Liam Smith and Liam Walsh will rematch next month for top contender status, which is currently unoccupied, but the WBO’s World light-middleweight champion, Puerto Rican future Hall-of-Famer Miguel Cotto, intends to retire and relinquish his belt after a farewell fight on 2 December.
All of which clears the path for the organisation’s fourth-ranked 154-pounder to make his move. Should Hogan beat Nonaka, he’ll move to the WBO’s number two slot, and will be in line to challenge the winner of Smith-Williams for the vacant WBO world title belt in the new year.
The Kildare man doesn’t even try to hide his excitement.
“It’s getting very real now,” says Hogan. “Only Monday, I was on Fox Sports doing a Fight Call-Out show. People really get into it here. Fox Sports cover it here, and even Channel 9 [one of three main free-to-air commercial networks in Australia] – it goes on free-to-air every now and again. It’s really, really big – and I don’t think people realise how big it is here, actually.
“After this fight next weekend, I believe I’ll be in a great position in terms of negotiation. I’ll make a statement in that fight, and turn a few heads in my direction. Believe you me. From there, who knows what might happen? We’d love to bring the world title fight here to Australia – that’s the goal – but if it comes up at a different time or in a different place, I’m going to have to take it.
“For the last three-and-a-half years I’ve been travelling around the world and fighting. I’m no stranger to that. If needs be, I’ll do it again. I’ll do whatever it takes.
“I’m only looking for big fights now. I mean, I was before, but I’m now in a position where I can start to demand them. We can go after whoever we want now. It’s an exciting time. The world title is obviously first and foremost in terms of priorities.”
He’s imbued, too, by the recent success of a long-time gym-mate. Hogan sat seven rows from the ring in July and watched compatriot Michael Conlan win impressively in Brisbane, before his sparring partner, Jeff Horn, toppled a boxing great in Manny Pacquiao to rapturous acclaim from an audience of over 50,000 Aussies.
That being said, the overall event was difficult to stomach for Hogan; this was a flagship day for Australian boxing, and so as a leading light in the sport Down Under, to not feature on the card left him with a ‘confusing’ feeling.
“Look, I would have loved to have gotten on that show,” Hogan admits. “It was frustrating seeing everyone else, you know. There was that special feeling in Brisbane that there was this big fight coming up – a great feeling – but I’m more used to being involved, obviously.
On the day, I was just there to support the boys. It was great to see Mick Conlan in action. And then, in the outdoor stadium and everything, to watch my gym-mate go out there and beat a legend, it was phenomenal I have to say. I took a lot from that day, and I got back into the gym straight away on the Monday. I had no fight coming up, but it sent me back into training full-swing.
Great to meet @mickconlan11 and watch him box last Sunday great work mate.also great to meet @JamieConlan11 too but forgot to get a pic 😕 pic.twitter.com/NbmLNsQC96
— Dennis Hogan (@dennis_h_hogan) July 4, 2017
“I took a lot of inspiration and motivation from seeing that happening,” he continues. “Ah, it was great.
“Jeff and I have been sparring partners for over four years now – nearly five. Both of us won the Australian title around the same time; we actually brought the belts into the ring and got a snap with the belts together – Australian champions together. So, now I’m only two fights off both of us standing there with the world title belts together.
“That was the dream all along, from champions of Australia together to being world champions together. It’s very close. It’s extremely exciting.”
There remains another dream, however.
“Aw, yeah! Well, look, that was always my dream originally, to come back and fight in Ireland. I wouldn’t come back and live there – I’m quite happy where I am now: I have an Australian daughter, I have a great relationship with the Irish-Australian community.
But my dream was always to win the world title, and bring it back and defend it in Ireland. Even before, when the opportunity came up to fight in Ireland, it wasn’t something I wanted to do until I had the world championship belt. That was always my dream, and I’m sticking to that dream.
“I wanted to go off and get it, in a sense, and then bring it back. That was my dream.
“So even though I’m probably only a year away from becoming an Australian citizen as well, that’s still my goal, and I’ll be working tirelessly to make it happen.”
Hogan now incontrovertibly considers Australia ‘home’, but accepts that to the casual Aussie boxing observer, he might not yet warrant the same fervent backing and affection as his homegrown peers.
He understands it, too. After all, ‘Hurricane’ remains a blow-in to those unfamiliar, regardless of how well he has settled since 2011. There’s no concern on Hogan’s part however, but rather a pragmatic solution: keep winning for his adopted homeland and he’ll garner universal acceptance.
“I dunno… Certainly my core supporters here, the Australians that are behind me, these guys are hardcore supporters and I’m very grateful to have such people around me like that. But, in a general sense… I think if I win the next couple of fights I might get a little bit more love, in that respect!
I don’t mean that there’s anything untoward, or any ill-feeling from anybody, but it’s just that, you know, to many I’m just ‘the Irish guy’ still, and you get the sense that there’s still a little bit of, ‘well, he’s Irish, we’re Australian.’ There is something that lingers in that I wasn’t born here, I wasn’t raised here, which maybe prevented some Australians from jumping on board straight away.
“It might change when I have citizenship next year, because obviously I’m fighting under the Australian banner as well. But winning a world title, and firstly making a statement in my next fight, is crucial. And I will do it. And if you don’t get recognition or attention for other reasons, you’ll get it through your performance.
“Look, I’m not going to go out there and starting talking it up and spouting nonsense to get recognition. Going out there and making a statement with this fight will put me on the road to that anyway.
“For me, it’s about the love of the game, it’s about providing for my family, it’s about giving back to boxing and to the community. And only then is it about whatever else comes with it. I’m focused on doing my job, and I’m confident the rest will come together.”
Still, for the eloquent Hogan, who now moonlights as a paid speaker on the Australian business circuit, the days of knocking on doors to sell tickets have been left in the rear-view, his Aussie fanbase ever-growing.
Support still filters through from 16,000 kilometers away, too, be it from the folks at the boxing club in Naas – founded by his grandfather, Paddy Rourke – or those of a slightly more high-profile nature in his native county.
I’d be in contact with some of the Kildare footballers – we’d be giving each other support. Emmet Bolton and the lads, I’d be chatting to some of those guys. I used to box in Naas as well, and people in Naas – we’re talking people who would have known my grandfather – I get great support from them. But then I’ll also get messages from people in Kildare and elsewhere that I’ve never met before. The support from back home in Ireland is phenomenal.
“Or if there’s a charity do on at home, someone will want a glove signed, or maybe if it’s someone’s birthday their brother or sister or parent might ask for one on Facebook or whatever. And that’s great, I love that. But it’ll be even better when I win the world title.”
And it’s this prospective end-game which makes tolerable his absence from family back ‘home home’ – that, and the fact that the 32-year-old has recently started a young family of his own.
“My parents, my family in Ireland – they know that I’m single-minded, and I’ve got this tunnel vision towards the world title,” Hogan says. “They know at this stage that I won’t stop until I get it. But of course it makes it harder.
“My partner Brideen and I are just after having a baby, and obviously most of the family is back in Ireland; she has one sister here, but my family are still back home. So, yeah…
“But I’m in full training camp – constantly training. There’s no point in putting it any other way. We’re doing what we have to do, and at the end of the day, it’ll make it all that sweeter when I get that world title.
“My parents are cool with it. Like, I used to get back when I fought in America – I boxed there pretty often, actually. I think I got back to Ireland three times in one year there, not so long ago.
But I haven’t been home now in two years. That is the worst part of it, you know. I have a cousin who just had his stage party there last weekend – it’s just those little things. Things are going past so quickly, and I’m missing so many family things. Both of us are – myself and Brideen. Look, it’s just a sacrifice I have to make in order to make this happen.
“I’m in a great position right now. I’ve worked hard to get to this point in my career with every sacrifice, everything having been considered. We’re nearly there now. When I win the world title and get some money to look after them, they can put their feet up for the rest of their lives.”
The path to that point of ultimate fulfillment begins next Saturday, when Japan’s Yuki Nonaka, whose 31-8-3 (10KOs) record is skewed by the fact that five of his eight defeats arrived in his first 15 fights, comes to town aiming to overtake Hogan in the race for the governing body’s soon-to-be-vacant world title.
The Kildare stylist is hellbent on running him off the track.
“He’s had some losses. Like, he knows how to lose. I’ve had one, and I was sick with myself over it because I know I could have done so much better. This guy, I know he hasn’t lost since 2009 – what’s that, and eight-year gap – but I don’t know. There’s just something about this fight. I have no fear of this guy whatsoever.
“I do know that you don’t take anyone for granted – 100% – but I just can’t see what he can to do to outbox me in any way. Like, he’s a southpaw, his left hand is his biggest weapon, and I’ve worked on nullifying that. On the night, he won’t be able to use that. At all. And I’ll be able to use aggression to break him down and finish him off.
I’ll be younger, fitter, more aggressive, and he has to travel this time whereas I don’t for the first time in three-and-a-half years. After this, for him, who knows? But it’s not going to be good.
Hogan’s sole reversal, meanwhile, arrived just under two years ago, when the game Irishman was beaten fairly on points by Ecuadorian-born German Jack Culcay in Wilhelmsburg, Germany – the interim WBA world title eluding him on that occasion.
His first professional defeat was, as is their wont, devastating. Hogan was astute enough to dissect it analytically, breaking apart not just the fight, but everything, before putting it all back together again with a far greater congisance of what had gone awry.
“There’s a footy term over here,” he says. ‘You’ve got to be in a Grand Final before you know how to win one’. That’s the way I look at that title defeat in Germany.
“But after a fight like that, you do wind up doing a lot of soul-searching. So, I had four weeks off, but literally four weeks to the day of the defeat, after family time in Ireland and all that – I came back for Christmas – I was back in the gym.
“And I fought in April, so I didn’t waste any time. I fought in April, September, and November of last year, so I got right back on there.
But I did do a bit of a soul-searching, I won’t lie to you. I did a lot more personal development work, just getting into a couple of seminars and learning more about ‘me’, because I felt I had started to run on a bit of a repetitive pattern and I wanted to see what was going on there, what that was all about.
He found a number of mitigating factors, but key to most of them, he felt, was the fight’s late postponement due to an injury suffered by Culcay days before the original autumn date.
“If you look at that fight as well – and there are no excuses here, only things I’ve sort of learned – I was in great fighting form originally but then it got postponed only a week out from the fight.
“I flew back to Australia from Germany where the fight was, and I kept training – I was sparring brilliantly. And then about four weeks out from the rescheduled date, I just hit a wall. Bam. Big time.
“I remember lying down one day and going, ‘I’m even too tired to lie down! What’s going on here?’ Because when you lift your energy to that degree for a world title fight, and you’ve given more than you ever had done previously, and then all of a sudden you have to keep that going for another two or three months, eventually you will crash.
Mental fatigue is worse than physical fatigue. If your body is tired but your mind is good, you can power through. If your mind is tired, your body won’t respond the same way. I remember just before I went back to Germany the second time for the world title fight, in sparring I was just standing there and taking punches. My mind wasn’t good during those last sessions before I flew back to Germany. Punches were being thrown and I was just standing there taking them. When your mind won’t allow you to move away, and it would rather you took the punches, that’s when you know you’re not in a good space.
“You learn from that,” he continues. “You learn to periodise your training, and not just go in and smash it every time.
“But even in the fight itself, I took an awful lot of lessons. I was in the habit of not using every second of the round, you know? I’d land a couple of shots, but because he was a flurry-puncher, he’d just wait for his opportunity and land a flurry. And I sort of let him away with that.
“I even dropped my hands a bit, and I think that goes back to my training; I’m not a notorious dropper of hands in the ring, but I had been doing it in sparring and training because I was so wrecked all the time, and I was too tired to hold them up. It was almost habit.
“There were so many things. The bell sounded at the end of the 12th round, and I said to myself: ‘holy shit, I have a lot of energy here.’ So I obviously didn’t put as much into the actual fight as I could have.”
These, as well as other issues which plagued him in the fight’s aftermath – and still do, to an extent – have long since been ironed out. Hogan now trains alongside Jeff Horn with a new trainer, Glenn Campbell, in the latter’s Stretton Boxing Club – situated in his $10 million mansion. It’s not Naas, but it’ll do.
There are no luxuries on offer in training, however; the Irish import has worked tirelessly with Campbell to ensure that, should the chance present itself next weekend, his Japanese opponent won’t hear the final bell. It all feeds into his plan to make a statement to the light-middleweight division, and cement his spot as next-in-line for the WBO strap.
“When I have a guy hurt, so often I’ve left them off the hook,” Hogan admits. “Lots of people say to me after fights: ‘you had him hurt there – why didn’t you finish him?!’ And I hadn’t been finishing lads. Sure I’ve seven knockouts in 25 wins. Something wasn’t right there.
“Glenn, my coach, has been working a lot with me on integrating defence with attack. So before, because I’d spent so long as an amateur, I’d step in on a guy, and when he’d swing back I’d move back out. I would have wasted all the momentum I had while attacking him.
“Now I’m integrating defence with attack, so when I’m in there hurting a lad, I can stay in there, I can use his weapons against him. I’ve been doing that in sparring and really, really getting the better of guys – hurting them and staying in there.
“That’s what I’m looking to emulate on this fight night. I’ll be looking to hurt him. I’ve been working on it, and it’s been tiring, it’s been hard work, but I’ll tell you one thing: it’s standing to me now.
I’m in the right state of mind for it. I’ve been coming in for the last two weeks and smashing out my best ever work in the gym. Glen came up to me and said: ‘Dennis, if you look in a racehorse’s eyes, you know how it’s going to get on. And you have that glint in your eye.’ He knows how I am.
Dennis Hogan fights Yuki Nonaka at the Convention and Exhibition Center, Brisbane, on 14 October. Tickets are available here.
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