The man throwing punches at him for ten rounds was the least of Josh Wale's worries on Saturday night.The 27-year-old from Brampton beat Welshman Dai Davies by a point at Rotherham's Magna Centre on his featherweight debut. The win over a tough and tricky opponent in a Commonwealth eliminator was made all the more difficult with Wale having had a horrendous few days before the fight. His son Mikey, aged one, had been in hospital the night before and had been tested with meningitis. The illness has since been diagnosed as a bad chest infection but Wale took the news very hard and considered pulling out of the fight.As a true professional, he got the job done. "The baby doesn't stay at home the week before a fight because I've got to rest," he said."Thankfully it's just a chest infection but it's a lot to deal with when you're a fighter and a dad."I would have pulled out if the tests results had been different. They tried to keep it from me but he'd been very poorly for about a week. It had been on my mind." If that had not been enough to contend with Wale was also cut inside of 30 seconds against Welsh champion Davies.Having been stopped twice before with injuries, Wale feared the worst but praised the work of cutsman Jamie Sheldon for protecting the injury above his left eye. Wale said: "The cut opened up straight away. It's from the 12 rounds I did in March (in a British super-bantamweight title defeat to James Dickens)."This fight was probably a bit too soon after that but it was too good an opportunity to let go." The bout was scored 96-95 by John Latham and Wale knew he'd done enough. He added: "The referee thought my shots had the more authority. As soon as Dai felt my power he didn't want to know."I gave him the spaghetti legs in round five with a hook."I was the one coming up a weight and he was coming down. He was supposed to be a strong man but I didn't feel it."In football terms you could say he parked the bus. He did a lot of nothing and I'm glad the referee saw that."Wale hopes to work again with Sheffield-based promoter Dennis Hobson again and is planning on being back in action in September.
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Barnsley FC
Emotional win for Josh Wale
05/06/15
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