Brothers in arms

Dublin’s Hyland brothers – who won a plethora of Irish amateur titles before turning pro – are set to make a name for themselves on the local boxing circuit by becoming the first three siblings since the Christles back in 1981 to all simultaneously hold professional Irish titles.

The youngest of the brothers - Paul, who is 23 and weighs 8 stone 10 pounds - is the only one who has yet to hold a title. He challenges current champ Mark Callaghan for the Irish Super Bantamweight title on July 5 in the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght. But with 10 straight wins to his credit, including four knockouts, Paul is not lacking in self-belief.
“I’m pretty confident about it,” he says. “He’s a tough fighter. He’s a former British champion. His last three fights were against top quality boxers. If I win this fight it will be a stepping stone to a top draw bout – against someone like Bernard Dunne – and hopefully I’ll be challenging for a European title soon. Within the next 18 months I could potentially be European champion. It would be a great achievement. You’d be going for a world title after that. I’d say that would take about two or three years to achieve.”
The Hyland’s management team is already looking at trying to set up European title fights for Paul’s two older brothers. Patrick, who is 24 and weighs 9 stone, is the Irish Featherweight Champion with 12 straight wins under his belt.
“I have an eight rounder on the fifth of July, and if I win it, that will lift me into the top 15 European rankings,” he enthuses. “So, hopefully, soon enough I’ll get a shot at a big name. I’m willing to take on any of those in the top ten. It will take about 18 months to get a shot at the European title, and the target would be to have a world title fight 12 months after that.”
The eldest of the brothers - Edward, who is 27 and 9 stone 4 pounds - is the current Irish Super Featherweight Champion. He has scored nine wins, three of them KOs. Edward, however, did lose a fight two years ago in England: his father Paddy puts it down to bad management.
“The fight he lost over in Liverpool with Stephen Mullen was because he wasn’t well at the time and he even had to travel six-and-a-half hours in a car before the fight. Just totally bad management. He has since beaten guys that have beaten your man. So, we’ve been looking for a rematch with Mullen but he won’t go near Edward. I reckon, if they were to fight now, that Edward would stop him in two or three rounds, no problem.”
HEAVY ROCK MUSIC
Disgusted by their training set-up in the UK, Paddy took his sons home to train with Paul Cook, the father of the European Champion, Nick Cook. But 18 months ago Paddy, who is a former boxer himself, decided to take over training his boys.
“When we lived in England, we were living on peanuts,” Patrick recalls. “Sleeping out in sheds and scraping by – just trying to make a living by getting a fight. But being back home now is great; we have our family around us. We are making a living out of boxing, but it can be difficult. At the moment we’ve got some new backing. So this sponsorship is helping us out tremendously, which is great. It means we can now focus on the boxing full-time.”
Things have turned out considerably for the better for Edward since coming home.
“I’m ranked sixth now in the British rankings and sixteenth in Europe,” he points out. “Hopefully, by next year I’ll be European champion. The fella who has it at my weight is Kevin Mitchell. He was actually in my old camp over in England, so I don’t think he’ll be too pushed to fight me, you know, because they know what I’m like over there. We’ll just have to see what happens.”
The brothers can be found six days a week pounding the punch bags at the Golden Cobra Gym in Tallaght. They always insist on playing loud music to inspire them as they train.
“We listen to hip hop and Rocky to get you going – to get the rhythm in your movement and stuff,” explains Paul. “If you have good music you can train better. Patrick and I love rap and R’n’B just for the background beats. But Edward puts on The Beatles and Guns N’ Roses or AC/DC – he loves working out to heavy rock music.”
A typical day for the brothers means getting up at 6am for a run and then heading over to the gym for a two or three hour session.
“We’ll take the Saturday off and go for a ten or 15 mile run on the Sunday,” explains Patrick. “So, we train six days a week – and twice or three times a day.”
Their father is confident that success is just around the corner.
“Everything is just flying for us since we got financial backing,” Paddy confirms. “They can just focus on training now. They are going to go all the way – there’s no doubt about it. Three brothers to contest for professional European titles? It has never happened before. If one of them makes it, they will all make it because it’s a package deal for the three of them. Bernard Dunne boxed for the vacant European title. What we are hoping to do is fight Martinez when he takes back the title – because we’d like to win the title by beating the natural champion.”

MEXICAN BROTHERS
How did all three brothers get involved in boxing?
“I blame their mother,” jokes their father. “No, seriously, boxing has always been in the family. My grandfather was a former Irish champion – Patrick ‘Whack’ Finn. He went to the war – World War II – and during it he was the trainer of the British boxing team over in Germany. When he came back from the war he boxed as a professional to put bread on the table. He fought mostly in England and Northern Ireland. According to my mother he’d 15 pro fights – he won 12 and lost three. At that time you’d need to be winning 30 or 40 fights to get a title shot. He was basically just fighting to put bread on the table.
“I boxed and then I started training with the Sacred Heart Boxing Club. The only one that wanted to box, and that I pushed, was Edward. I didn’t care if the other two wanted to box. Besides, Patrick’s first love was football and he played for Tallaght Town, and he was best goal scorer and player of the year – but they dropped him because Shamrock Rovers took over and the age group system changed. But when he took the boxing up seriously, he became Irish champion within six months.”
Despite all their successes, none of the brothers ever got the opportunity to represent their country at the Olympics. Why not?
“The one that got the nearest was Paul,” says their father. “He went over to the European championships and he got Jerome Thomas – he was actually world champion – and he beat Paul 21 to 20 on points. One point! And then he went on to win a silver medal in the Olympics. If you don’t qualify out of Europe you don’t get into the Olympics. It’s much harder now than it was years ago.
“Patrick was never destined for it, as he never had the temperament for it. He didn’t like computer boxing. Even though he was winning Irish titles, he was more suited to pro boxing. In fact both Patrick and Edward are more suited to professional boxing. Less meaningful shots can score on the computer, whereas they were landing big heavy power shots which is now paying dividends in the pro boxing.”
There’s now talk of the three brothers fighting against three Mexican champions – also three brothers – in Boston later this year. And it’s a fight night the three Hylands are really looking forward to. “I was over in the US in March and headlined,” says Patrick. “It was a great atmosphere over there. They love the Irish. I fought Mick Bobs, who had 27 fights and won 14 – and 13 of his wins came by knock out. I was expecting it to be a hard fight but I knocked him out in the fourth round. I just went out there and started unloading and he went down.”
If you want to see sporting history in the making, get down to the National Basketball Arena on July 5 to see Paul and Patrick Hyland in action. You might just be seeing a future world champion in action The question is: which one?