Watch Bernard Dunne v Sergio Carlos Santillan live on RTÉ.ie this Monday night from 7.50pm. Deferred coverage on RTÉ TWO at 11.50pm.
Bernard Dunne's manager Brian Peters is expecting a tough fight from Sergio Carlos Santillan when the two meet in a non-title featherweight fight in Turin this Monday night.
Dunne, who is looking for his 20th successive professional victory, sees a win over Santillan as the perfect stepping stone to challenging England's Michael Hunter for his European super bantamweight title.
Peters, who also promotes Jim Rock, Paul Griffin and Matthew Macklin, admitted: "I've seen one of Santillan's defeats which was quite controversial but he has only been stopped once. Argentinean fighters, by and large, are hard men so it would be a good result if Bernard could stop him. But we're expecting it to be a good tough eight rounds."
Peters has known Dunne since he was 14 or 15, when he organised a sparring session with Olympic silver medallist Wayne McCullough. Even at that early age, Peters saw something special in the young Dublin fighter.
He said: "First of all, he was a very good kid and a decent person and obviously a very talented amateur. He was 11 times National amateur champion and has never been beaten in this country in 90 fights. He has won 119 amateur fights and lost 11. It was his whole professional approach and professional attitude, he was very focussed, very driven even from such an early age. He was a damn good fighter too."
Looking ahead to the fight, Peters confirms that preparations are going well as Dunne completed his training at the Holy Trinity Boxing Club in Belfast.
He added: "Preparations are going well. There was a little bit of a change around in the date and that, it was going to be Germany, but Bernard's the ultimate professional. Once you give him his programme he follows it to a tee. He's been training well with Harry Hawkins, we had a couple of good sparring partners in from Africa and another guy called Martin Lyndsay, a good young amateur kid, and it's been going extremely well."
