Top-rated Birmingham amateur Antonio Counihan is turning pro with Maloney Promotions, Midlands Boxing can exclusively reveal.
The Eastside ABC super-featherweight [pictured after winning the Midland ABAs earlier this year] captained England in the vest and had been heavily-tipped for an Olympic Games berth at the 2016 event in Rio de Janeiro.
But the lure of influential promoter Frank Maloney has seen Antonio ditch the head guard and the Great Britain development squad. He will be trained in his home city by his dad and amateur coach Paul, and managed by well-respected former pro Jon Pegg, who [amongst others] looks after British 11st title-chasing puncher Max Maxwell.
Counihan dominated Stephen Foster Jnr in sparring while the Salford man was European champion last year and is set to make his paid bow on December 10, on a Maloney-promoted bill in Peterlee that's topped by Ashley Theophane's British light-welterweight title defence against Nigel Wright.
A good stylist who garnered a sizeable following in the unpaid code, the former junior ABA champion scalped ex-Ireland captain Ray Moylette, a World Youth champion, reached a senior national semi and has regularly held his own in sparring with Commonwealth Games champion Thomas Stalker, who recently qualified for next year's Olympics with a bronze medal-winning performance in the World Amateur Championships.
And the 20-year-old fast-handed, quick-footed Solihull boxer looks calm, measured and will do his sparring at the Birmingham city centre-based gym that's home to Pegg and Richie Woodhall's band of fighters. And Pegg said: "He's a good prospect who has proved over the last three or four years that he is one of the best in the country.
"Tonio has the tools to go a long way and i think he will," he added.
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