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Boxing clever: Gerry was one of the entertainers.
(From Belfast Telegraph)
Byline: Jack Magowan
IF fightbiz and showbiz are one and the same, Gerry Hassett was the supreme entertainer.
A fighter's fighter, he prowled the ring like a lynx, lived dangerously, and paid only scant heed at times to boxing's Marquess of Queensberry manners.
Nor did Vincent O'Kine, I hasten to add, on the night the pair swopped outlaw punches in Castleblaney.
It was mid-summer 1959, and Channel swimmer Jack McClelland felt sure the first professional bill ever staged in Co Monaghan would be a winner.
What this promoter didn't bank on was one of the ugliest scenes even Hassett himself can …
