RICARDO CORDOBA vs BERNARD DUNNE

Demolished in 86 seconds by Spanish slugger Kiko Martinez 19 months ago, Bernard Dunne has regrouped impressively and, after three wins in a row, he challenges Colombian southpaw Ricardo Cordoba for the WBA 122-pound title on Saturday.

This is one of the biggest-ever fights in the Republic of Ireland, which has a rich boxing history.

Muhammad Ali fought Alvin “Blue” Lewis on a money-losing outdoors shown at Dublin’s Croke Park in 1972 while on St. Patrick’s Day in 1923 County Clare-born but U.S.-domiciled Mike McTigue defeated Battling Siki in an historic Dublin bout.

More recently, Naseem Hamed stopped Manuel Medina in a gruelling featherweight championship fight in Dublin, Barry McGuigan made a featherweight title defence in that fair city and Steve Collins twice beat Chris Eubank in 168-pound title bouts in County Cork.

In 1955 the Irish fans were so upset by the decision in favour of French European featherweight champion Ray Famechon over Billy “Spider” Kelly that an ugly disturbance erupted at Dublin’s Donnybrook bus garage.

One hopes that there will be nothing disputatious about Saturday’s fight in which, just four days after St. Patrick’s Day, Dunne steps up in class for the biggest challenge of his career.

Dunne, 29, has done everything he could possibly have done to give himself the best chance of winning. His team imported top-class southpaw sparring partners Alberto Servidei, an unbeaten Italian, and tough Nicaraguan William Gonzalez. The Dunne camp also brought on board nutritionists and strength and conditioning experts.

A packed house of 9,000 is expected at the O2 arena in what promoter Brian Peters describes as “the biggest financial gamble of my life”. The fans are eager to see the first-ever world title challenge by a Dubliner in his native city.

Now all that Peters can hope for is a happy ending. He sounds optimistic, saying last week: “I’ve never seen Bernard so sharp and focused ahead of a fight. I suppose that’s to be expected given the magnitude of the fight, but he really has taken his preparations for this fight to a whole new level.”

Dunne, though, faces a formidable task. Cordoba is a skilled, experienced boxer who is no stranger to boxing on his opponent’s home territory. His only loss was on a split decision against the strong Thai, Poonsawat, in Bangkok, and he twice drew with Wladimir Sidorenko in title fights in Germany.

When Cordoba captured the WBA title last September he gave a beautiful display of boxing to outclass the sturdy and aggressive Nicaraguan Luis Perez.

Dunne isn’t nearly as experienced at the top professional level as Cordoba but he had an international-class amateur background. The Dublin setting will be inspirational for Dunne and he is going to enter the ring prepared for the fight of his life.

This does, though, look like a fight that will be very hard for Dunne to win.

The one-round los against Martinez wasn’t a fair reflection of Dunne’s ability. He got caught before he could get started. Cordoba is a technician, not an aggressive banger, so the chances of Dunne getting overwhelmed quickly seem remote.

Dunne gave a very stylish display of boxing when he comfortably outpointed the veteran Esham Pickering in a European title bout in 2006, his best performance, and he hs a lot of experience against southpaws, with wins over the likes of Felix Machado, Noel Wilders, Sean Hughes, Yuri Voronin and Adrian Valdez. He has never, though, met a southpaw — or any fighter, come to that — with the fluid skills, reflexes and all-around excellence of Cordoba.

Getting stopped in the first round can happen to fighters of considerable merit, but Dunne has not always seemed the sturdiest of boxers. While Cordoba is not known to be an exceptionally hard hitter, I think that there is more chance of the champion hurting Dunne than there is of the Irish boxer hurting the Panamanian.

I think that Dunne will acquit himself well, but it seems to me that Cordoba is just a bit better in every department. I can envisage Cordoba wearing down Dunne and landing the sort of punches that will end a game Irish challenge at some point after the ninth round.