Newly crowned NSW super welterweight boxing champion Troy O’Meley and his camp know he has a devastating knockout punch.
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But they are deliberately leaving it in the locker room as the 25-year-old chases his goal of a world title belt.
“A big right-hand hook will take you around the block, a great jab will take you around the world,” O’Meley said of the philosophy he took into his title fight against experienced and tough fighter Raymond Ingram in Newcastle on Friday night.
My jab is going to take me around the world. My whole life I’ve wanted to be a world champ.
- Cessnock boxer Troy O'Meley
A super-fit and controlled O’Meley stuck to the plan, fine-tuned through a month-long training camp in Thailand where he spent four years from 16 with the Thai National Boxing team, to take a unanimous points decision.
“All the support from Cessnock has been unbelievable. Without that support I would not have been able to get to Thailand and prepare as I needed to,” O’Meley said after the fight at Wests City.
“The plan was to work on my jab and be controlled. That’s what wins world titles.
“A lot of hard training in Thailand with my dad and Bob Larden, it’s all worked.
“My jab is going to take me around the world. My whole life I’ve wanted to be a world champ.”
O’Meley transformed the dream to a goal after watching a video of former Australian boxer Jeff Harding beating British WBC world light heavyweight champion Dennis Andries for the title in London in 1991.
“My dad showed me a video of Jeff Harding fighting for the world title. He boxed the guy for 12 rounds. He got beaten in 10 of those rounds, but in the 11th he came out and changed it.
“His coach said to him ‘Do you want to win this, what are you doing?’. ‘Change this and change that’ and he went out and did it.
“When I saw that I saw what your brain can do. If you set goals and keep that goal and strive for it, you will get it.
“That’s why we did the training camp. I stuck to my jab like our plan was and it won me the fight.”
After a week’s break, O’Meley will be back in training and his camp will be working hard to secure him the fights to reach his ultimate goal of a world title belt.
“I’ll be chasing some big fights now, whether it’s an Australian or Commonwealth title,” O’Meley said.
“The aim is to build towards a world title.
“We’re going all the way, that’s it.”
Asked after the fight by the ring announcer who he would like to challenge, O’Meley singled out Australian light middleweight champion Tim Tszyu, the son of former world champion Kosta Tszyu.
”He has a terrific record and is great fighter, but I believe I can challenge and beat fighters of his quality,” he said.
”If you want to be world champion you have to beat world ranked fighters.”
The title win takes O’Meley’s professional record to seven wins from seven fights.
