BELFAST – “I’m very much involved in my family life. I still work. I still do school runs daily. I put my kids to bed every night, and I’m very happy that that’s the way I’m able to juggle my life,” smiled Padraig McCrory, the day before his high-pressure fight with Craig Richards. 

“Baby number four is expected in June, so it’s a very busy time,” McCrory added, “but I wouldn't change that for the world. I do do this to try and make life a bit easier for us financially, but my wife is a very successful woman. She’s a biomedical scientist. She works full-time. She puts no pressure on me to do this, and I do it for my desire to win, but also to try and make things a bit easier, and to make my kids very, very proud.”

McCrory is a personal trainer by day, working his day – which starts with clients arriving at the gym as early as 5.30am – between school runs and around other dad duties.

“I’m not going to stop doing what I’ve always done,” he said. “I feel like I’m a full-time athlete, operating at a part-time level. Because of my own commitments to my family and what I want from life. But I’m here, I’m rolling the dice, and I’m ready to reap the rewards. 

“I’m still working, and people find that strange because I’m competing at a decent level. But as I say, it’s who I am, it’s what I do. But, for me to put in a camp, as I say, with my other commitments, it’s very difficult. So to do that, to make it worthwhile, this is the type of fight that I want to be in.”

Things will get no easier on Saturday night, when he will be in the fight of his life in a contest he knows is full of jeopardy to the extent that it could be the final one of the 36 year old’s career.

Richards is both experienced and skilled, and in his 18-4-1 (11 KOs) has addressed some formidable foes.

“I think you just need to look at his resume,” McCrory said, when asked how good he thought Richards is.

“I think, given where me and Craig’s career is at, it’s a must-win for both of us, or else we’re in a position where we need to consider what’s next… But it’s still a massive fight domestically, and I think the winner of the fight moves on to a very stacked division, with the potential of having some massive fights and making some really good money. 

“He’s boxed and always put on a very good performance against the best in the world [in Dmitry Bivol and Joshua Buatsi]. He’s a very good fighter. But if I want to get back to challenging the big names, I have to beat him. If I want to get back to that level, that’s what I’ve got to do.”

The future is far less rosy for whoever loses.

The likeable Belfast southpaw is 36 and has, in his words, overachieved in his career.

He’s 19-1 (9 KOs), and was one fight from the big time when he was stopped by Edgar Berlanga in Florida in 2024. But time is not on his side, and Richards has a point to prove, too, having lost to Willy Hutchinson in his past fight and moved back to the Matchroom Gym to try to find a renewed spark.

“There is that small pressure of knowing that a defeat leaves me in an awkward position,” acknowledged McCrory. “But the will to get back to here and to feel this feeling again and to have these fight weeks really drives me on and makes me hungry to do it again.” 

McCrory has hand-delivered some 400 tickets for Saturday’s bill at the SSE Arena in Belfast, Northern Ireland, something he has also always done through his career, and it is one that has meant him surprising himself with how much success he has enjoyed.
“I think going to Germany and beating Leon Bunn for the IBO belt was the highlight, but also taking my team and taking my friends and family to Florida at the main event, a Matchroom card [against Berlanga] was massive for me as well,” he said. “I started boxing on the small halls and was probably expected to stay there and, eight years later, after my first fight, being at 29 years of age, I think I have surpassed and exceeded all what’s been expected of me, and what people thought I could achieve from the sport. 

“Of course, I’ve exceeded my own expectations. I’m very happy to say that I’m an overachiever, but I have to achieve more. I’ve got the feeling for it. I’ve got the hunger for it, and the feeling and desire is very much, I want more from this sport.”

Even Eddie Hearn was at a loss to say where the loser might go once the dust settles from Richards-McCrory. That would be pressure for many, but McCrory insists it is not for him.

“It’s motivation,” he insisted. “I don’t feel pressure. As I said, I’m an overachiever so everything’s a bonus, but I thrive on these nights, and I don’t want them to end and I feel like a defeat on Saturday night could end up being the end of that.”

He recognised, again, that he is rolling the dice. 

“Yeah, definitely,” he concluded. “I suppose at this level it always is, right? Especially against such good fighters.”