Seanie Monaghan emerges victorious from bloody brawl

The crowd roared when professional boxer “Irish” Seanie Monaghan scored a knock down in the fourth round, when he dropped opponent Elvir Muriqi at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn last Saturday. Throughout the fight, the cheers from the audience were deafening.

Indeed, the venue was teeming with so many Monaghan supporters from Long Beach that the 32-year-old fighter said he couldn’t even hear the announcer when he entered the ring.

“I couldn’t hear them introduce my name,” said Monaghan. “I had to read the announcer’s lips to see when he called my name.”

The undefeated Monaghan outperformed Muriqi throughout the 10-round bout, and though he won by unanimous decision, he suffered a terrible cut around his left eye after a head butt by Muriqi in the ninth round.

“It was smooth sailing until the very last 30 seconds of the last round and we clashed twice and I got cut badly,” Monaghan said. “It was a head butt — I watched the tape, I don’t think it was on purpose — I was throwing punches and he was really tucked in with his head down when he came at me.”

Though he began bleeding profusely from the cut in the ninth, Monaghan survived the 10th-round rally by Muriqi, a veteran fighter, and ultimately clinched a unanimous decision to retain his WBC Continental Americas light heavyweight title.

Still, Monaghan was taken to South Nassau Communities Hospital for treatment by a plastic surgeon, and received stitches to his left eye.

“I was bummed that I couldn’t go into the crowd afterward,” he said. “All those people screaming definitely fire you up and gives you the extra boost that you need. It was a long, tough night — the guy didn’t seem to be going anywhere, and thank God there was one round left to go, but I hung there.”

Monaghan’s fight against Muriqi was one of the main undercard bouts for the Ruslan Provodnikov-Chris Algieri fight, which aired on HBO, and it followed his huge win over fighter Joe McCreedy in Las Vegas in April.

Monaghan is now 22-0, with 14 knockouts. It was the second time, he said, that he had gone the full 10 rounds since he defeated boxer Rayco Saunders by unanimous decision in 2012.