Power couple Bannon and Barry aim for return in May
DEAN Barry and his partner Shauna Bannon are both hoping to be back in MMA competition by the close of May.
The former has seen his clash with Geralbert Costillo in the Dominican Republic pushed back from its original date of April 26 to May 29.
Shauna Bannon and Dean Barry
Meanwhile, Bannon was scheduled to take on Indra Davis in Newry on Saturday, but that clash has also fallen foul of the Covid-19 threat and been consequently refixed for May 31.
There had also previously been discussions regarding Bannon fighting an English opponent in the Red Cow on May 30 so it remains to be seen what, if any, fight the Tallaght woman will be contesting.
For Barry, the match-up against Costillo represents a great opportunity to further his MMA career as a convincing performance there could pave the way for an appearance on the UFC Dublin show scheduled for August.
With a record of four wins and one loss, Costillo represents Barry’s biggest test so far, yet the Tallaght man is hungry for the opportunity to add to the two wins he has chalked up from three outings.
Indeed he has already seen three scheduled fights for last August, October and December all fall through before the postponement of his trip to the Dominican Republic.
“Really I should be at 5 and 1 right now, but I’ve had a bad run in terms of trying to get fights. I’ve just had to roll with the punches and keep training hard” he told The Echo.
Barry has carded knockout wins over Cory Samuels and Thomas Thatcher and is very hopeful of taking his place on the Contender Series in Miami later this year which could provide another route into UFC.
Both Barry and Bannon can train together to a certain degree, but their preparation has been hampered by the temporary closure of their SBG clubs and their gym at Westpark.
Neither is certain as to when they will be back in competitive action, but they will continue to gear their training towards the scheduled challenges at the close of May.
“It’s really all about keeping the weight down” pointed out Bannon. “Normally a camp runs from eight to 12 weeks, but we really don’t know what is going to happen right now” she pointed out.
Bannon has really impressed since taking up MMA last year, even managing to land a brilliant silver medal at the IMMAF-WMMA World Championships in Bahrain back in November.
The European equivalent is scheduled for Rome in June, but that is very likely to be at least postponed in light of the severe Corona-virus outbreak in Italy.
