The legend of Ray Moylette will live on after a blockbuster swansong

It was a night that will go down in local folklore.

‘Sugar’ Ray Moylette will never say never about hanging up his boxing gloves but if his fight with the ferocious Facundo ‘Topo’ Arce at Once Upon A Time In The West on Sunday night at the TF Royal Hotel & Theatre is to be his last, then what a way it was to bow out.

The undercard of the event was stacked with talented fighters, including Moylette himself, with main event duties falling to boxing royalty Dillian Whyte, who made his return to action after his planned fight with Anthony Joshua in August 2023 was called off over doping charges that Whyte has since been cleared of.

Despite its placement on the card, ‘Sugar’ Ray was undoubtedly the main event at the TF and the man who the house was packed out to see. The Islandeady man came in with one hell of a war cry as his sister and actress Sheila Moylette gave a rousing, stirring rendition of The Foggy Dew. Ray emerged from behind the curtain, led by two bagpipers taking up Sheila’s rallying call as he walked to the ring.

Moylette settled into the fight well in the opening round and the crowd was right behind him, chanting ‘Ole, Ole, Ole’ and he got some good shots in off the back of their support. Arce was in no mood for the hometown sentimentality however. The Buenos Aires boxer was a late substitute for Moylette’s planned opponent Jake Tinklin but showed no sign that he was ill-prepared for battle.

In the second round, he unleashed a furious assault that brought Moylette down to the canvas for a seven count. Moylette landed a good body blow in the third round and was finding his own once more. It looked as though Arce was fading slightly in round four as Moylette began to land more and more clean hits.

At the start of round five, Arce was showing the effects of the damage Moylette had inflicted in his face and ‘Sugar’ Ray’s gloves were glistening with Argentinian blood. However, like the proverbial wounded animal, Arce was dangerous.

He dug deep and finished the round very strongly, launching another furious assault on Moylette and leaving the Mayo man shook as he returned to the corner, the round-ending-bell the sound of relief.

Round six was far more muted as both fighters looked to regain some energy after a grueling opening five. Round seven and eight showed both men at their most relentless and Arce will have felt he had the edge on Moylette coming out of it. However, the decision went the way of Moylette on points, 76 to 75. Arce was none too pleased with this outcome and promptly left the ring with a wag of his finger towards the judge’s table.

The Argentine’s feelings will have mattered little to Ray Moylette, who claimed the victory in front of his hometown crowd in what may well be his final fight. He was joined in the ring by his wife Sharon, friends, family and fellow athletes in an outpouring of positive emotion.

Before Moylette and Arce brought the house down, the first bout of the evening saw Daniel ‘San’ O’Sullivan pitted against Martin Balog, who was hailing from the Czech Republic.

It only took the Dubliner 2 minutes and 54 seconds to extend his winning record to 4-0 as he forced a TKO. In the short exchange, he managed to take down Balog three times.

With O’Sullivan backed by a healthy travelling crowd down from the capital to back their man, Balog might well have thought himself in the lion’s den at the TF. The first and second time he was taken off his feet, the Czech fighter hauled himself up after an eight second count. Once again, Daniel ‘San’ laid Balog out like a yoga mat and he thought better on this occasion, opting to stay down and out for the count.

The second fight was a much more competitive affair with another Dubliner, Craig ‘The Iron’ O’Brien prevailing by 60 points to 54 after six rounds against the resolute Frenchman Remi Scholer, all the way from Marseille.

No one in the TF was more animated than Scholer’s trainer, who was barking instructions in furious French from the corner that was being taken on board by his fighter. He and ‘The Iron’ were well matched, with Scholer having the upper hand in the opening exchanges. However, by the time the first round ended, O’Brien was starting to find gaps in Scholer’s defence.

The Dubliner was the boxer putting up the better defence and was in turn, getting the cleaner hits in. In the fourth round, he made a quick switch of the feet and unloaded on Scholer, which left him reeling.

O’Brien started to look exasperated in the fifth round as he kept trying to put Scholer away but the French fighter remained resolute to the end of the sixth and final round. He finished strongly but ‘The Iron’ was well out in front and was a worthy winner.

The third contest ended with a narrow defeat for Cork boxer Gary ‘Spike’ O’Sullivan on points against Sofiane Khati. By now, the house was getting packed and though patrons at the TF paid for the whole seat, they only used the edge of it during the latter rounds of this fight. ‘Spike’, with his mustachioed upper lip and bald head looked every bit an old-school pugilist on what was his first fight since May 2022.

Khati, another Frenchman, was tenacious and intelligent throughout this fight. O’Sullivan absorbed a lot of hits in the opening round as he looked to size Khati up and started to find his feet in the third and fourth round. Khati recovered well in the fifth and by the time the sixth was halfway through, he had the measure of ‘Spike’ and the crowd was vertical in the TF.

Both fighters could have made a claim to have won the final two rounds and a tense verdict awaited after the eighth and final round. It finished 77 to 76 in favour of Khati.

There was nothing sweet for Czech boxer Pavel Sour in his fight against Thomas ‘The Bomber’ Carty, hailing from North Inner City Dublin. Carty had the crowd rocking to the sound of Shipping Up To Boston during his entrance and it didn’t take him long to rock Sour.

He was all over the Czech in the first round and in the second, gave him an almighty wallop to the midsection to send him keeling over. Sour rose, but Carty struck him again in that now vulnerable stomach area and this time he was down for good, just 40 seconds into the second round.

‘The Bomber’ waved a Mayo jersey around in celebration and declared “Dublin for Sam and Mayo for the Sandwiches.” After Moylette’s victory over Arce in the penultimate fight of the night, it was time for the main event at the TF.

The addition of two-time WBC Heavyweight champion Dillian Whyte to the card was much talked about in the days leading up to Once Upon A Time In The West and everything up until the fight itself with Christian Hammer lived up to the billing.

Whyte looked the part of a superstar, bursting through the curtain and marching to the ring to the sounds of Back in Black by AC/DC. The Body Snatcher was indeed back, but in green, white and gold trunks adorned with shamrocks, perhaps a homage to his Irish roots; once upon a time in the east, Whyte’s grandfather had emigrated from Dublin to Jamaica.

Despite the difference in stature within the sport between Whyte and Hammer, the Romanian-German boxer held his own against the bruiser from Brixton during the first two rounds. Whyte was getting the big hits in and it was inevitable that he would emerge victorious one way or another but Hammer wasn’t too far off the pace early on.

In the third round, things began to look a little grimmer and the baying crowd were just waiting for Hammer to fall. The pre-match billing of a ten-round bout was not looking very likely to be met. Hammer went to the corner at the end of the round and as Whyte geared up for the fourth, Hammer struggled to his feet and ultimately, could not continue.

Whyte was visibly disappointed by this anti-climatic finish to the night and so too were the departing patrons.

All the same, they got their bang for their buck following a supreme night of entertainment. There is no doubt that this night will be a tale to tell the grandkids. A tale of the night that a heavyweight boxing superstar came to the TF in Castlebar.

A tale of how the Dubs, O’Sullivan and Carty, conquered the Czechs, how ‘The Iron’ O’Brien turned to steel against the powerful blows of the man from Marseille and how 'Spike' O'Sullivan from the rebel county fell just short against another Frenchman, who had dancing feet and the brains of an engineer.

Best of all, it will be a tale about a fella named Ray Moylette. Sure, he is only from out the road, from out Islandeady. And they will speak in reverent, reminiscent tones about the night he stepped between the ropes and into the ring, perhaps for the final time, and had his arm raised skywards in victory.