JUST OVER A year ago, having acquitted himself well but fallen short in his world-title opportunity against Lamont Roach, Feargal McCrory was on his back.
Not figuratively — as is so often the case for the previously unbeaten boxer forced to contend with the reality that they’re not, in fact, the best.
McCrory [17-1, 9KOs] was literally on his back: in the fourth round of his comeback fight against the hard-hitting Keenan Carbajal at Madison Square Garden, he’d been caught with an overhand right that knocked him directly backwards onto the flat of it, almost in the guise of an animation from EA Sports’ Fight Night which feels unrealistic compared to the rest of the game.
Keenan Carbajal knocks down Feargal McCrory. Alamy Live News.
Alamy Live News.
“I was lying there, looking up at the lights in The Garden, thinking, ‘Ah… Here we go again!’” laughs McCrory, who had tasted the canvas three times against super-featherweight world champion Roach in his previous outing.
As Carbajal retreated to a neutral corner confident that the job was done, McCrory shuffled up as far as his arse, at least, sitting upright as referee Arthur Mercante Jr reached three in his 10-count. Then he got onto one knee.
“And the foot that was on the ground, I was pushing that into the ground just trying to see if my legs were stable,” McCrory explains.
“It felt okay. So I got up, and the ref, then, checked me and then said, ‘fight’, or whatever.
“I look up at the clock as well, and if memory serves me correctly, there are about 25 seconds left in the round. I knew there wasn’t long to go, anyway. I’d already lost the round. So, I wasn’t going to come out and act the hero.”
McCrory tests his stability. Alamy Live News.
Alamy Live News.
McCrory composed himself and conjured the wherewithal to show Carbajal “a different look”.
“And what I mean by that is, had he gotten to grips with my timing, had he found out my rhythm?” McCory says. “So I dropped my arms and started just shuffling him back ever so slightly as he came forward — but not running away. And he was sort of looking at me, caught a a little bit unawares.”
The bell sounded to end the fourth. McCrory had survived.
“And after the bell rang — and I honestly still have no idea why I said this, but I says to him as he’s walking away, ‘Don’t miss your chance.’ And we both laugh.”
But Carbajal did miss his chance. McCrory went on to drop him twice, pummeling the American into an eighth-round stoppage against the ropes to pull off one of the most memorable MSG comebacks in recent years.
McCrory describes Carbajal as a “really good guy”. They didn’t get a chance to exchange pleasantries afterwards as the loser was taken to hospital as a precaution, but they still exchange messages on Instagram.
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McCrory stops Carbajal. Alamy Live News.
Alamy Live News.
McCrory, who has based his training camps in The Big Apple and built a serious fanbase over the last six years, had seemingly revitalised his career. But the former world-title challenger has had to wait 13 months for his own chance to kick on.
While he sees the funny side of working in New York’s financial district — “my teachers would take some look at you” — the business of boxing has screwed the 33-year-old Tyrone man more than most over the years.
After turning professional with initial manager-promoter Ricky Hatton in 2015, McCrory built his record to 11-0 (5KOs) before enduring a three-year layoff, which he charitably attributes to both the Covid-19 pandemic and poor decision-making on his own part; there was, in reality, plenty of typical boxing bullshit thrown in there for good measure.
During his period out of the ring, McCrory returned full-time to his day job in road construction — in which he continued to dabble until last year when he opened his own gym in Donaghmore, Fearless Fitness and Recovery (named after his ring moniker, of which he wasn’t initially fond when it was given to him in John Breen’s gym way back when).
It was McCrory’s wife, Genevieve, who convinced him to give boxing another crack in 2022 rather spend the rest of his life wondering whether he could have added professional hardware to his plethora of underage amateur international honours.
Doors began to open, finally. After reeling off five consecutive victories, three of them quick, the Coalisland southpaw was chosen as the bolt-from-the-blue challenger for Lamont Roach’s world title, facing ‘The Reaper’ in his home city of Washington in June 2024. McCrory gave a fine account of himself in the US capital, boxing astutely for broad spells, but ultimately succumbed in the eighth round having already climbed off the canvas on three occasions. Roach would go on to best pound-for-pound star Gervonta Davis in his next fight only for the judges to score the bout a draw.
But without the backing of a major promoter, McCrory has fought just once since Washington: his come-from-behind victory over Carbajal at MSG in March 2025.
More boxing bullshit: he spent five weeks last autumn — including at least three in New York at his own expense — preparing for a fight with former featherweight champion Josh Warrington only for the Leeds man and promoters Matchroom to pivot instead towards a rematch with Leigh Wood.
He was offered a fight against an apparently beatable light-welterweight (10 pounds heavier than his own typical fight weight of 130lbs) but justifiably didn’t see the point of it. He was offered a fight with a lightweight whose promoter knew McCrory would beat him, and wanted this particular 135-pounder off his books — but McCrory again stuck to his guns.
Most jarringly of all, a deal was proposed to him for a super-featherweight fight in which McCrory himself would have to put up $100,000 as a guarantee for his ticket sales, and from which he would have made only $20,000 profit provided he sold all of those tickets.
“I’m not going to name the promoter but I have it all in black and white in my phone, like,” McCrory sighs.
“That’s what’s known as a pay-to-play deal. It’s actually illegal in the state of New York!”
But for all that he has had to grit his teeth over the last year, McCrory’s patience has paid off: he recently signed a three-year promotional contract with Zuffa Boxing, the supposed industry disruptor headed by UFC president Dana White, who also counts Cork light-middleweight Callum Walsh [16-0, 11KOs] and Irish amateur great Joe Ward [12-1, 8KOs] among his recruits.
Feargal McCrory celebrates his eighth-round stoppage of Keenan Carbajal at Madison Square Garden in March 2025. Alamy Live News.
Alamy Live News.
On Sunday, McCrory will face world-rated Filipino Mark ‘Magnifico’ Magsayo in the latter’s adopted hometown of Las Vegas. Their chief-support bout will take place up at lightweight — Zuffa recognises only the traditional boxing divisions — and it will be broadcast live on Sky Sports in the wee hours of Monday morning (Irish time) from the UFC’s Apex facility.
“It’s just cool,” McCrory says from his hotel. “A great experience being out here in Vegas. It’s something new. It’s something I’ve prepared very well for and I’m enjoying it. I’m really, really enjoying this.”
His signing with Zuffa, however, begs the question as to whether he believes he’ll be able to challenge for a recognised world title again, or whether he even cares.
White’s organisation are currently in the process of changing US federal law, or The Muhammad Ali Act, which since 2000 is supposed to have restricted promoter power, regulated sanctioning bodies, and protected fighters from exploitation. Zuffa’s stated aim is to install its own world title and, eventually, to become what the UFC is to mixed martial arts, rendering boxing’s WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO as secondary or irrelevant. As such, it doesn’t intend for its contracted boxers to challenge for these more traditional boxing belts in future.
McCrory’s answer as to what he makes of this policy is initially curt. “I’m just thinking about Sunday,” he says. “Like, I know — I know people say this and it sounds a bit of a cliché, but I really don’t look past Sunday. My world ends on Sunday, it begins on Monday. Monday’s a new dawn and I set new plans in place. But Sunday is huge. I have a good opportunity here.
“To dwell on your question a little,” McCrory then adds, “I don’t know. I don’t know. The issue with boxing nowadays, with the governing bodies and all this — look, they’re a massive part of the sport, they’re what we all dream to win… but when I fought Lamont Roach (for the WBA world title), I gave a good account of myself, and yet I lost my top-15 ranking right away because they took the [ranking] belt that I had. And you lose your ranking title when you fight for the world title because it allows them to get their sanctioning fees off somebody else for that same ranking title. Y’know what I mean?
“If you’re manager or promoter has friends in the governing body, or a good relationship with them, you’re in the top 10 for fighting taxis drivers, y’know? It’s wrong. It is wrong, and it’s quite often a popularity contest. A lot of it is just decided at their annual conventions every year where boxers with big backing can have people go to bat for them.
“The WBC, for example… an unbelievable title. Jesus, the green belt. You know we all know what it means. But, like, Ryan Garcia failed a drug test, then he got beat, and then he goes and fights for the title in his next fight! He gets all these opportunities because of his profile.
“And look, fair enough, whatever, if that’s how you do it, that’s how you do it. But I’m not in this sport to pretend to be something I’m not. If I’m good enough, I’ll come through.
“And I’m being treated well by Zuffa Boxing,” adds McCrory, for whom such an experience feels revelatory. “You’ll have promoters on their high horse about the Muhammad Ali Act and yet one of them offered me a deal where I would have to put up 100 grand to fight.
“This week in Vegas, we’re being treated like athletes, like. I’m being treated unbelievably well.
“And if I’m able to fight for another word title down the line, let’s see. Would I like to?” McCrory pauses to mull over his own question. “Yeah, I would. But if it’s just a Zuffa title, am I happy? 100%, yes. 100%.”
McCrory in action in 2024. Alamy Live News.
Alamy Live News.
Whatever comes out in the wash, McCrory can at least look forward to more regular fights to provide further for his family.
While he never had an issue with working the roads to support his sporting career (“I loved going to work, seeing all the lads, it’s part of my life”), the running of his new business, Fearless Fitness and Recovery, has been even more full-on.
McCrory describes himself as “a father, husband and boxer in that order”, and, just like his new business venture, weeks like these in Vegas are predominantly inspired by his three children, Aoife, Cónán and Meabh, and their mum, Genevieve.
“That’s my motivation and my drive and my discipline and everything all rolled into one,” he says. “I’m away from them for weeks but I’m still speaking to them nearly every day. I’m hearing about the football matches and school and homework and tests; swimming and everything that comes with it. That’s difficult.
“My wife is an absolutely unbelievable woman. She juggles everything. She works full-time. She actually has two jobs, as a beautician and a receptionist. But she she has more jobs because she’s a mum and a cook, and an accountant for me,” McCrory laughs. “She’s so, so, so good.
“I just can’t wait to get home and spoil them all.”
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'I'm not in this sport to pretend to be something I'm not. If I'm good enough, I'll come through'
JUST OVER A year ago, having acquitted himself well but fallen short in his world-title opportunity against Lamont Roach, Feargal McCrory was on his back.
Not figuratively — as is so often the case for the previously unbeaten boxer forced to contend with the reality that they’re not, in fact, the best.
McCrory [17-1, 9KOs] was literally on his back: in the fourth round of his comeback fight against the hard-hitting Keenan Carbajal at Madison Square Garden, he’d been caught with an overhand right that knocked him directly backwards onto the flat of it, almost in the guise of an animation from EA Sports’ Fight Night which feels unrealistic compared to the rest of the game.
“I was lying there, looking up at the lights in The Garden, thinking, ‘Ah… Here we go again!’” laughs McCrory, who had tasted the canvas three times against super-featherweight world champion Roach in his previous outing.
As Carbajal retreated to a neutral corner confident that the job was done, McCrory shuffled up as far as his arse, at least, sitting upright as referee Arthur Mercante Jr reached three in his 10-count. Then he got onto one knee.
“And the foot that was on the ground, I was pushing that into the ground just trying to see if my legs were stable,” McCrory explains.
“It felt okay. So I got up, and the ref, then, checked me and then said, ‘fight’, or whatever.
“I look up at the clock as well, and if memory serves me correctly, there are about 25 seconds left in the round. I knew there wasn’t long to go, anyway. I’d already lost the round. So, I wasn’t going to come out and act the hero.”
McCrory composed himself and conjured the wherewithal to show Carbajal “a different look”.
“And what I mean by that is, had he gotten to grips with my timing, had he found out my rhythm?” McCory says. “So I dropped my arms and started just shuffling him back ever so slightly as he came forward — but not running away. And he was sort of looking at me, caught a a little bit unawares.”
The bell sounded to end the fourth. McCrory had survived.
“And after the bell rang — and I honestly still have no idea why I said this, but I says to him as he’s walking away, ‘Don’t miss your chance.’ And we both laugh.”
But Carbajal did miss his chance. McCrory went on to drop him twice, pummeling the American into an eighth-round stoppage against the ropes to pull off one of the most memorable MSG comebacks in recent years.
McCrory describes Carbajal as a “really good guy”. They didn’t get a chance to exchange pleasantries afterwards as the loser was taken to hospital as a precaution, but they still exchange messages on Instagram.
McCrory, who has based his training camps in The Big Apple and built a serious fanbase over the last six years, had seemingly revitalised his career. But the former world-title challenger has had to wait 13 months for his own chance to kick on.
While he sees the funny side of working in New York’s financial district — “my teachers would take some look at you” — the business of boxing has screwed the 33-year-old Tyrone man more than most over the years.
After turning professional with initial manager-promoter Ricky Hatton in 2015, McCrory built his record to 11-0 (5KOs) before enduring a three-year layoff, which he charitably attributes to both the Covid-19 pandemic and poor decision-making on his own part; there was, in reality, plenty of typical boxing bullshit thrown in there for good measure.
During his period out of the ring, McCrory returned full-time to his day job in road construction — in which he continued to dabble until last year when he opened his own gym in Donaghmore, Fearless Fitness and Recovery (named after his ring moniker, of which he wasn’t initially fond when it was given to him in John Breen’s gym way back when).
It was McCrory’s wife, Genevieve, who convinced him to give boxing another crack in 2022 rather spend the rest of his life wondering whether he could have added professional hardware to his plethora of underage amateur international honours.
Doors began to open, finally. After reeling off five consecutive victories, three of them quick, the Coalisland southpaw was chosen as the bolt-from-the-blue challenger for Lamont Roach’s world title, facing ‘The Reaper’ in his home city of Washington in June 2024. McCrory gave a fine account of himself in the US capital, boxing astutely for broad spells, but ultimately succumbed in the eighth round having already climbed off the canvas on three occasions. Roach would go on to best pound-for-pound star Gervonta Davis in his next fight only for the judges to score the bout a draw.
But without the backing of a major promoter, McCrory has fought just once since Washington: his come-from-behind victory over Carbajal at MSG in March 2025.
More boxing bullshit: he spent five weeks last autumn — including at least three in New York at his own expense — preparing for a fight with former featherweight champion Josh Warrington only for the Leeds man and promoters Matchroom to pivot instead towards a rematch with Leigh Wood.
He was offered a fight against an apparently beatable light-welterweight (10 pounds heavier than his own typical fight weight of 130lbs) but justifiably didn’t see the point of it. He was offered a fight with a lightweight whose promoter knew McCrory would beat him, and wanted this particular 135-pounder off his books — but McCrory again stuck to his guns.
Most jarringly of all, a deal was proposed to him for a super-featherweight fight in which McCrory himself would have to put up $100,000 as a guarantee for his ticket sales, and from which he would have made only $20,000 profit provided he sold all of those tickets.
“I’m not going to name the promoter but I have it all in black and white in my phone, like,” McCrory sighs.
“That’s what’s known as a pay-to-play deal. It’s actually illegal in the state of New York!”
But for all that he has had to grit his teeth over the last year, McCrory’s patience has paid off: he recently signed a three-year promotional contract with Zuffa Boxing, the supposed industry disruptor headed by UFC president Dana White, who also counts Cork light-middleweight Callum Walsh [16-0, 11KOs] and Irish amateur great Joe Ward [12-1, 8KOs] among his recruits.
On Sunday, McCrory will face world-rated Filipino Mark ‘Magnifico’ Magsayo in the latter’s adopted hometown of Las Vegas. Their chief-support bout will take place up at lightweight — Zuffa recognises only the traditional boxing divisions — and it will be broadcast live on Sky Sports in the wee hours of Monday morning (Irish time) from the UFC’s Apex facility.
“It’s just cool,” McCrory says from his hotel. “A great experience being out here in Vegas. It’s something new. It’s something I’ve prepared very well for and I’m enjoying it. I’m really, really enjoying this.”
His signing with Zuffa, however, begs the question as to whether he believes he’ll be able to challenge for a recognised world title again, or whether he even cares.
White’s organisation are currently in the process of changing US federal law, or The Muhammad Ali Act, which since 2000 is supposed to have restricted promoter power, regulated sanctioning bodies, and protected fighters from exploitation. Zuffa’s stated aim is to install its own world title and, eventually, to become what the UFC is to mixed martial arts, rendering boxing’s WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO as secondary or irrelevant. As such, it doesn’t intend for its contracted boxers to challenge for these more traditional boxing belts in future.
McCrory’s answer as to what he makes of this policy is initially curt. “I’m just thinking about Sunday,” he says. “Like, I know — I know people say this and it sounds a bit of a cliché, but I really don’t look past Sunday. My world ends on Sunday, it begins on Monday. Monday’s a new dawn and I set new plans in place. But Sunday is huge. I have a good opportunity here.
“To dwell on your question a little,” McCrory then adds, “I don’t know. I don’t know. The issue with boxing nowadays, with the governing bodies and all this — look, they’re a massive part of the sport, they’re what we all dream to win… but when I fought Lamont Roach (for the WBA world title), I gave a good account of myself, and yet I lost my top-15 ranking right away because they took the [ranking] belt that I had. And you lose your ranking title when you fight for the world title because it allows them to get their sanctioning fees off somebody else for that same ranking title. Y’know what I mean?
“If you’re manager or promoter has friends in the governing body, or a good relationship with them, you’re in the top 10 for fighting taxis drivers, y’know? It’s wrong. It is wrong, and it’s quite often a popularity contest. A lot of it is just decided at their annual conventions every year where boxers with big backing can have people go to bat for them.
“The WBC, for example… an unbelievable title. Jesus, the green belt. You know we all know what it means. But, like, Ryan Garcia failed a drug test, then he got beat, and then he goes and fights for the title in his next fight! He gets all these opportunities because of his profile.
“And look, fair enough, whatever, if that’s how you do it, that’s how you do it. But I’m not in this sport to pretend to be something I’m not. If I’m good enough, I’ll come through.
“And I’m being treated well by Zuffa Boxing,” adds McCrory, for whom such an experience feels revelatory. “You’ll have promoters on their high horse about the Muhammad Ali Act and yet one of them offered me a deal where I would have to put up 100 grand to fight.
“This week in Vegas, we’re being treated like athletes, like. I’m being treated unbelievably well.
“And if I’m able to fight for another word title down the line, let’s see. Would I like to?” McCrory pauses to mull over his own question. “Yeah, I would. But if it’s just a Zuffa title, am I happy? 100%, yes. 100%.”
Whatever comes out in the wash, McCrory can at least look forward to more regular fights to provide further for his family.
While he never had an issue with working the roads to support his sporting career (“I loved going to work, seeing all the lads, it’s part of my life”), the running of his new business, Fearless Fitness and Recovery, has been even more full-on.
McCrory describes himself as “a father, husband and boxer in that order”, and, just like his new business venture, weeks like these in Vegas are predominantly inspired by his three children, Aoife, Cónán and Meabh, and their mum, Genevieve.
“That’s my motivation and my drive and my discipline and everything all rolled into one,” he says. “I’m away from them for weeks but I’m still speaking to them nearly every day. I’m hearing about the football matches and school and homework and tests; swimming and everything that comes with it. That’s difficult.
“My wife is an absolutely unbelievable woman. She juggles everything. She works full-time. She actually has two jobs, as a beautician and a receptionist. But she she has more jobs because she’s a mum and a cook, and an accountant for me,” McCrory laughs. “She’s so, so, so good.
“I just can’t wait to get home and spoil them all.”
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