When Thomas Carty gets called the next great Irish heavyweight, you must first answer the question, who was the last great heavyweight to emerge from the Emerald Isle?
Of course, there’s Tyson Fury, a former Irish titleholder, but he was born in England. Dundalk’s Tom Sharkey made plenty of noise in the division back when James J. Jeffries was champion, but that was in the early 1900s. Between then, there was the occasional contender, but as we enter the tail end of 2024, the unbeaten Carty is looking to be the great heavyweight hope for his nation.
“I see myself a couple of fights away from the heavyweight top table,” said the unbeaten Carty, who faces Argentina’s Jonathan Exequiel Vergara this Friday in his native Dublin. “I'm 8-0, about to go 9-0, add another knockout to the record, and there's no blueprint for me, being that the last Irish heavyweight to do anything notable would've been Kevin McBride, who knocked out (Mike) Tyson. There hasn't really been anyone since Tyson Fury - he's the last one to hold the Irish title. But, for me, I'm not too sure how many steps away from the top I am. I know how good I am. I've sparred Fury for the (Oleksandar) Usyk fight, sparred (Anthony) Joshua for the Usyk fight. I sparred everybody, really, to be completely honest. So it's hard to say, but all I know is I'm not too far away from those top guys already.”
Forget Irish – after mimicking the undisputed heavyweight champion for Fury and Joshua, Carty may be part-Ukrainian now.
He laughs.
“Left-handed, fast feet, nice, stylish technical boxer, but there's absolutely no Ukrainian in me; I’m fully Irish.”
And fully invested in getting to the top of boxing’s glamour division. That’s usually not something feasible in other weight classes with less than 10 fights, but given the experience Carty has garnered not only in his fights, but in the gym, he may move faster than most, especially since he’s got a manager right in the thick of things in Dillian Whyte, a former interim WBC heavyweight champion.
“After my last fight, we both fought on the same card on St. Patrick's Day here in Ireland, which I'm quite proud of,” said Carty. “He said after my last performance that - and this is coming from a man who's been there and seen what it takes – Thomas Carty could be a world champion. He said it takes time, and it takes patience, but Thomas Carty has the potential to be a world champion.”
Not that Whyte is biased at all. We both laugh.
“No, not at all,” said Carty. “But he's also a guy that doesn't really talk s**t. If you know Dillian Whyte, he doesn't big people up. He doesn't give compliments.”
In other words, hearing Whyte, who has been in with Fury, Joshua and other top heavyweights of this era, say what he did is high praise. The 28-year-old Carty doesn’t let it get to his head, though. He’s got work to do and he’s willing to put that time in. As for everything else that surrounds a rising star in the division, Carty seems unbothered by it all, a cool he attributes to his father.
“I probably got it from my dad,” he said. “Nothing really raises his blood pressure. He’s calm, cool, and collected, and he's selective about what he lets annoy him and what he doesn't let annoy him, and he educated me fairly well on what's a problem and what’s not a problem, and nine times out of 10, what you think is a problem actually isn't.”
What is a problem is the 6-foot-4 Carty, who has ended seven of his eight wins by knockout, four in three rounds or less. He expects to deliver more of the same this Friday in the 3Arena that has been a second home, considering that he’s fought there in two of his last three bouts.
“I know where the crowd is when I knock him out and where to look after I knock him down,” laughs Carty. “But, of course, it adds something. I've only had two fights at home out of the eight in my pro career. So it's very prestigious and special for me to fight in the 3Arena once again.”
It may also be a good chance for fight fans to catch the next great Irish heavyweight before things start getting even bigger.
“I know from being on the scene myself that there have been some good Irish heavyweights that haven't really transferred over or gotten the chance,” Carty said. “Professional boxing has been dead for years. There hasn't been really much going on, and the revival has all started with Katie Taylor turning professional, and she's given us young fighters a platform and something to reach for.”
Carty is certainly reaching for the stars in boxing. But if that doesn’t work out, maybe he’ll follow his buddy Johnny Walker into the UFC.
“I can talk numbers with (UFC CEO) Dana and we'll see,” he laughs. “But I was in the UFC PI in Vegas in January, and I was doing some kickboxing, MMA rounds and stuff. So who knows?”
That’s the beauty of being undefeated, under-30 and having the world about to open up to you. That has to be a glorious feeling, but Thomas Carty has his sights solely set on what’s in front of him.
“I never get ahead of myself,” he said. “I always focus on the task at hand. So we take it one step at a time, and the next step is Friday night at the 3Arena.”
Carty’s 3Arena Dominance
Thomas Carty will be back in party-starting mode on another big card this Friday night fully aware how fortunate he is to be a 3Arena regular. The popular Dublin heavyweight becomes the most active boxer at the Docklands venue when he populates the Callum Walsh homecoming card at the arena on Friday night. His eight-round clash with the potentially tricky Jonathan Exequiel Vergara is his third at a venue that was at one stage dormant in terms of boxing.
As Ireland’s leading heavyweight and a boxer from Dublin who generates excitement and intrigue aplenty, it’s a no-brainer for the UFC and 360 Promotions to have him on the card.However, Carty still feels somewhat lucky. Not that he is surprised to be sought after, more so he’s surprised there have been so many big cards in his home county.
“It’s amazing,” says the Celtic Warrior Gym fighter. “There was a stage when I thought I’d never fight in Ireland at all. It didn’t look like any shows were happening, so we are in a great era now in boxing, especially in Dublin with regular shows. It’s building momentum and everything is about momentum.”
Promoters like Eddie Hearn of Matchroom have seen the potential in the southpaw, as has his manager and sometimes sparring partner Dillian Whyte.
Carty on the Rise: Fighting for a Future
“We are all getting an opportunity on a big card and fair play to Callum Walsh for bringing such a big organisation back to Dublin. As we’ve seen over the years that isn’t always easy to do. So Thank you to him,” comments the BUI Celtic Champion.
The Paschal Collins trained Dublin 7 puncher is two from two at the 3Arena and celebrated two knockout victories at the venue. First, he accounted for Scot Jay McFarlane in a high-profile title fight at the venue before stopping Dan Garber on the Taylor-Cameron II bill. He plans to keep that knockout run going against Argentine opposition on a Friday, promising to get straight to the point in a venue known as The Point to boxing fans. “A win by first or second-round knockout,” he says making a prediction.
A victory would see the 28-year-old, who has only been brought the distance once, move to 9-0 in the most watched and lucrative division.
The big punching lefty has a following and standing akin to heavyweights much further along in their journey and thus could be handed a short cut to bigger fights.However, the boxing savvy and promotionally aware heavy is big fight keen but is educated on the dangers that come with rushing into things.
“Not to say I’m not going to take any chances. But it took me a while to build to what I have here and what I have is a potentially very lucrative position to be in, so I’m not going to make any silly or impatient mistakes,” he tells the Rocky Road podcast.
“I want to fight more regularly but I’m not desperate to fight because desperation is a bad place to be in boxing.”
Looking Ahead: The Carty Party in Dublin
THOMAS CARTY WILL tonight box at the 3Arena in his home city of Dublin for the third time in less than 18 months, on the undercard of Callum Walsh’s homecoming bout against Przemyslaw Runowski. There was a time five or six fights into his professional career when up-and-coming heavyweight Carty wondered if he would ever get the chance to box in Dublin at all. Now, he practically has a residency there, having earned two stoppage victories on Matchroom’s Katie Taylor-Chantelle Cameron cards last year. The next step will be to get his own face on the poster, but the 28-year-old ‘Bomber’ (8-0, 7KOs) must first look after business against Argentinian opponent Jonathan Exequiel Vergara (6-1, 3KOs) in the chief support bout tonight.
“We know the run of the place now,” Carty smiles. “The Carty Party know the run of the place and know how long it takes to get back to the pub and stuff. So yeah, no, it’s all good.
“I’m on the crest of this wave of Irish boxing returning to Dublin in the 3Arena. It’s great timing and I think I’ve really made the most of it.”
Carty’s undercard bouts at the venue have quickly become an event in their own right, hence 360 Promotions’ decision to grant him the second-last slot before headliner Walsh tonight.
The Dubliner is among pro boxing’s more gregarious characters, a well-spoken sort who is typically respectful of his opponents. But when Glasgow’s Jay McFarlane visited these shores for Carty’s 3Arena debut, the home fighter was forced to change tack. McFarlane became the antichrist during fight week, even donning a Shamrock Rovers jersey during the weigh-in as a means of antagonising Carty, a Bohemians diehard. That much worked, but it cost him a painful night. Carty dropped the Scot three times, halting him in the third and taking the roof off a feral fight venue.
“He really brought out the best of me and I rose to the occasion,” Carty says of McFarlane and his 3Arena bow last May.
“I thought at the time that there was an awful lot of pressure. I said, ‘Jeez, all the talk this fella is doing. I can’t let him beat me now — a Rovers jersey?!’
“Everybody was loving it that week. The atmosphere for my fight was nuts and then, I hate to say it, but everybody left and went to the bar straight after that for a couple of fights.
“Apparently the stadium emptied and it didn’t fill back up until Katie. Apparently, now — I didn’t see it.”
In fairness, it was plenty full for Gary Cully’s chief support bout — but Carty is right that it was a lot emptier at 8pm than it had been an hour earlier, a sign of his ticket-selling power in his own city.
Carty is managed by British heavyweight world-title challenger Dillian Whyte, and he routinely posts pictures from the training camps of the world’s top heavyweights who draft him in for sparring.
A six-foot-four southpaw with natural speed and high-level amateur pedigree, Carty was as solid an Oleksandr Usyk tribute act as Anthony Joshua or Tyson Fury could have found anywhere in the world as they prepared for their recent bouts with the Ukrainian great. But such sparring is, of course, symbiotic, and it has taught Carty plenty on either side of the ropes.
“Like the way, the way I see it myself, it was an eye-opening experience to spar these guys — and spar them on a regular basis, too, to be completely honest: ‘AJ’, Fury, this, that and the other.
“And I think I’m ranked around 80th or something in the world at the moment — out of, say 1,500 active heavyweight boxers, I’m in the top 80, top 90 in the world already after very few fights.
“But the margins from the guys who are in the top 90 to the top 10 are really small.
“Like, it’s not that it’s not a million miles away. It’s still quite a significant difference. But I’m nearly four years a pro now — three and a bit — and what I’ve discovered is that the difference is experience. And it’s a cliché, and I hate using clichés, but you really cannot buy experience.
“Not just in the ring but even experience doing media, stuff like this, and at different levels as it gets bigger and bigger. It’s all part of it.
“The stakes get higher and you need experience. You can’t just be dropped in at the top, you know? You need to build to it.”
Carty, unlike most boxers at a similar juncture in their careers, is a full-time athlete, a luxury partly made possible by sponsors. He has no idea how peers in the sport find the time to train professionally while holding down other employment. “My missus will ask me to drop her to work”, he says, “and I’ll be thinking, ‘Oh, God, that’ll be 20 minutes….’ Y’know what I mean? I barely have time as it is!”
Carty, who is plainly intelligent but didn’t enjoy school, understood fully the risk of choosing boxing as his career path, even if family members and teachers were far less understanding. He reckons a lot of them considered him a “waster” for a period of time. But they’ll be at the 3Arena tonight. Their kids will be wearing his t-shirts. That much is satisfying. And Carty knows it could all end earlier than scheduled, too, in which case he’ll have to make a dramatic career change. But the aim for the moment is to keep chasing better opportunities, bigger paychecks, and a life more interesting than most.
“Like, as soon as I stop enjoying it as a whole, I’m finished,” he says of boxing.
“Like, whether I wind up doing what I want to do in the sport or not, I really enjoy what I do.
“I don’t have a boss, I’m my own boss. D’you know what I mean? I don’t have a time to be in work or anything like that, or have any issues with anybody above me. The buck stops with me, I like the set-up.
“The ceiling for me in terms of what I want to do in boxing, I’d be happy once I secure myself financially. But what keeps me in this sport, I think, is that competitive edge, I suppose.
“Like, if I wasn’t boxing today and I was working a job, I’d be doing something on the side, some kind of sport or something that I would have to be the best at.
“When I do something, I do it properly — and it’s not often I do anything to be completely honest — but if I do something I do it right. When I clean the house, I don’t just tidy it up — it’s absolutely sparkling, industrial-style.
“Same with boxing: I’ll do it fully and with all my best effort and best intentions or I just won’t bother at all.”
Thomas Carty takes on Jonathan Exequiel Vergara at Walsh v Runowski at the 3Arena tonight. Tickets are available via Ticketmaster.ie.
Carty's Fight Against Vergara
The Thomas Carty vs. Jonathan Vergara round-by-round updates are here with real-time coverage and live scoring. The two men meet in a heavyweight boxing match contested over 8, three-minute, rounds.
The event, held at 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland, starts at 12:30 PM E.T. (Eastern Time) / 9:30 AM P.T. (Pacific Time) / 5:30 B.S.T. (British Summer Time). As for the matchup itself, an estimate for the pair's ringwalks is between 3:00 PM E.T. / 12:00 PM P.T. and 4:00 PM E.T. / 13:00 PM P.T.
Both men are relatively new to the sport of professional boxing, with Carty boasting an undefeated record of 8-0, while Vergara is 6-1. Moreover, Carty appears to carry more power in his punches, so he is expected to emerge victorious come fight night.
While no world title is on the line, the bout is a high-profile one as it will be featured on the main card of an event streamed on UFC Fight Pass. Regarding the odds for the heavyweight bout, BetUS lists Carty as a staggering -3333 favorite, while Vergara is a +1333 underdog.
Follow Sportskeeda for play-by-play analysis and live scoring of the 8-round bout.
Round 1: The fight is off to a measured start, but both men are finding a home for their jabs. Nothing committal has landed though. Carty with a nice jab to the body. He's heavy on the front foot before lunging in with a long right hook, leading to a brief clinch. A one-two for Vergara.
Carty is back on the pressure, which Vergara tries to ward off with a body jab. This is a close round so far, but just like that Carty scores the biggest shot of the fight so far with a right hand that sends Vergara stumbling backward. There's a clear difference in power and physicality.
Body jabs land for Carty. 10-9 Carty
Round 2: A jab for Carty, and a counter-jab from Vergara. Still a relatively tentative bout. More jabs for the Englishman, but Vergara fires back with his own, landing a slick combination before pivoting out of the pocket. However, a second exchange in the pocket sees Carty land a hard shot to the body that folds Vergara.
It was a thunderous left hook to the liver, and and while Vergara beat the count, Carty rushed him and knocked him down for a second time. He would not get up again.
Official Decision: Thomas Carty def. Jonathan Verga via knockout in round two (2:49)
