SPORTING PASSIONS/CHRIS LAWN:WHEN WE were growing up, Barry McGuigan would have been the big draw at that stage. It was fairly easy to watch his fights on television and I think it was also because of the way he crossed the divide and what he did for the country at a time when things weren't good around these parts. Plus there was his skill as well and, even listening to him now with his analysis of boxing matches, he would definitely be a hero of mine.

I wouldn’t have been at any of his fights but I listened to them and watched them. There was obviously the world featherweight title fight against Eusebio Pedrosa in 1985 and watching that live was fantastic.

It was great until he fought Steve Cruz in Las Vegas. That was a disaster for him in those sweltering temperatures and the way it happened. It was unbelievable because Cruz was such an outsider. But talking to people who were at that fight, they were finding it difficult to even sit and watch it in that heat.

At that time, Dennis Taylor was the world champion in snooker, you had McGuigan as well and Barney Eastwood, who was McGuigan’s manager at the time, is a Tyrone man as well.

Then you had the Tyrone team, who were getting to their first All-Ireland final in 1986.

So at that stage in Tyrone when I was growing up, everything was going well sports-wise. And it just followed on from there really.

I never boxed myself but there was a local boxing club here and I went and trained with them there. Even from a young age, what attracted me to boxing was the healthy respect that I had for those athletes.

The amount of work they put in is unbelievable. There’s the bravery as well of going toe-to-toe with a man in battle. I think boxing is the bravest sport in the world at the minute.

Each boxer that gets into the ring has got my utmost admiration because they’re very, very brave men.

In a team game there’s normally somebody else to take the hit or take the fall for a poor performance, whereas these guys just go out and everything’s laid bare for everybody to see.

I still follow boxing and I think it’s come back into the limelight this last couple of years. I’ve been to a few of Bernard Dunne’s fights, at Breaffy House in Castlebar and down at The Point. I watch Ricky Hatton as well.

I think the likes of Hatton have brought boxing back to the world stage and I admire him too. I’d have watched a lot of Joe Calzaghe’s fights as well and the man has a phenomenal record.

I think that if you listen to or read about any boxer, it’s a war really that they’re going into. They have got to defeat this man, their immediate opponent, hands down.

If a footballer took that attitude into his game, where he has to defeat his immediate opponent, I suppose that would be a similarity that you could make with Gaelic football.

I think that a disciplined lifestyle, especially coming up to big bouts or big games, would be very similar as well but I suppose it’s the same for any athlete.

But boxing is an individual sport and I think the similarities with a team game wouldn’t be as prevalent really.

Going into a personal duel with your own opponent would probably be the closest comparison.

I love to listen to McGuigan’s analysis of fights. He calls it the way it is but he never really criticises a fighter. But he will get his point across and he always brings it back to the way he would have done it.

You can see the way he was when he was a fighter – he had a certain dignity with him and real mental strength. I think any Gaelic footballer who has those traits will be very successful.

I was lucky to get back on to the Tyrone panel for 2005 but it wasn’t without putting in a great deal of work.

That’s probably why I can relate to what these guys go through because they do put themselves up for a lot of criticism if things don’t turn out well.

A lot of boxers go on too long and if things hadn’t worked out for me then a lot of people would have said that I did go on too long. But the way it did pan out was just perfect.