It’s been a long wait, but ‘Deadly’ Dana Coolwell will finally get the chance to show the world what he’s all about when he fights highly regarded featherweight Bruce Carrington at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on November 15th.
If that day sounds familiar, it is. The eight-round fight will be between 58-year-old former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and boxer-turned-YouTuber Jake Paul. The card will be distributed worldwide by Netflix to their 282+ million paid subscribers.
“This is a big opportunity,” said 25-year-old Coolwell (13-2, 8 knockouts), a proud Mununjali man from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. “I really enjoyed it, especially in my first game in the USA. There is no big card to be a part of. I’m just thankful for the opportunity. It took a few days, but I’m settling in here, I had my first child and I got it out of the way, so now I’m just training hard.”
Carrington (13-0, 8 KOs) and Coolwell have long been linked. They were due to meet on the first day of the Tyson-Paul card at the same venue on July 20 before ‘Iron Mike’ suffered an injury in early June which forced the fight to be postponed. Things hung in the balance for a while for Coolwell and he wasn’t sure if the Carrington fight would go ahead.
“We weren’t sure what was going on, we were left in the dark,” said Coolwell. “I was sitting and preparing myself, I live in the camp, we almost did our own thing but everything went well.
“I’m just going to go out and do what I do, box, fight and play. I’m really excited to play on such a great card, and as I look at it, it’s a great opportunity to show the world who I am and stand out on the scene.
Carrington, 27, of Brooklyn, has been on the fast track to success after becoming champion three years ago following a decorated career that ended with a reported record of 255 wins against 31 losses. He won the New York City Golden Gloves in 2017 and the US Olympic Trials in 2020, but when the COVID-19 pandemic delayed the Tokyo Olympics for a year, he opted to join the punch-for-pay ranks instead.
But it wasn’t all easy for Carrington. After the initial postponement of the Tyson-Paul card, Carrington decided to fight Ugandan southpaw Sulaiman Segawa at Madison Square Garden on September 27. That bout, which was featured as the opener on an ESPN TV show headlined by Mikaela Mayer. vs Sandy Ryan, almost ended in disaster. Segawa was quick out of the blocks, claiming the first two rounds before Carrington returned to the fight but he never looked like fully holding it. When the dust settled after the 10th heat it was a majority decision win for Carrington, but it was far from convincing.
“I think he was struggling a little bit with the movement,” Coolwell said. “Segawa was also not feeling well. But I don’t learn too much from it, because obviously I’m a different fighter. It’s hard to compare because I’m not from the south. But I’m expecting the best version of Bruce because he’s going to want to wipe out that fight. I’m preparing to make sure I reach the highest level.”
Not everyone thought Carrington, The Ring’s Prospect of the Year for 2023, deserved the nod. You can count Coolwell coach Stephen Pitt among their number.
“I thought Sagawa was unlucky not to get the decision,” said Pitt, who has trained Coolwell out of the Hinterland Boxing Club in Beerwah, Queensland since he was young.
But Pitt was quick to add that they weren’t underestimating Carrington, saying they were waiting for the best version of The Ring’s No.10 ranked featherweight to emerge.
“We think Bruce is very sharp and very intelligent,” he said. “He has the ability to adapt. But we also think his style will suit Dana well, with his movement, boxing IQ, his jab and his work rate and experience. I think the fight is going well for us. Dana just needs to use her work level. Eight laps is a sprint for us, a sprint for Dana.”
Boxing is a sport full of great stories and the origin story of how Coolwell met Pitt and fell in love with science is no different. The slightly built but naturally gifted Coolwell began playing rugby but joined a boxing gym in the off-season to keep fit after his mother saw an ad for a boxing gym in the local paper. Coolwell’s father had recently died and when he was 13, his family worried he might leave.
“I’ve always been a fan of the game, but at the time I was playing rugby for a local team and at first, I wanted to try it out,” Coolwell recalled. “I found that I enjoyed it. Then I started playing and I loved it even more. After finishing the rugby season, I wanted to have my first junior fight. After that, I never looked back.”
It was a chance meeting with Pitt that shaped his future as a prize fighter. A former boxer who missed out on going to the Beijing Olympics after losing to qualifier Brad Pitt in 2008, Stephen retired from his role in criminal justice to start his own gym training boxers at an unpaid level. At first, he didn’t notice that the skinny Native child was hitting the bags. That was until he saw her spar.
“I ignored him at first,” admitted Pitt. “But I had a kid I was working with who was going to win titles of the same weight and I needed sparring.” The kid was inside the ring and Dana was sitting there. I clearly remember thinking, ‘he’s just this angry little boy’. I said, ‘Hey brother, do you want to leave?’ I thought he wouldn’t agree, but he just jumped. He couldn’t control himself.
“I put a guard on him, I put gloves on him, he didn’t have a guard, but he took this child out. I thought it must be the paleness. So I thought I’d put him back in, but he did it again, and he took the baby out of the box. That’s when I realized he was something special.”
Pitt quickly became a father figure to Coolwell, and later, a confidant. There were tough times, but the duo persevered and built a bond as strong as any trainer and fighter in the sport.
“I’ve been with Steve from the beginning and I have no intention of changing that for the rest of my career,” said Coolwell. “We have a good relationship. We both see things and we both communicate well. It just works.”
The COVID-19 pandemic was perhaps the most trying time for the two. Fights were hard to come by and Coolwell took chances when they came, losing two fights outside of his natural weight class.
His first fight was against local boxer Jake Wyllie at lightweight in October 2021. The second was against Venezuelan Ender Luces at junior lightweight in April 2022. each time.
“In Wyllie’s fight, Dana was very wet at 60kg and we were fighting at lightweight,” said Pitt. “We took that fight because it was during the time of COVID and no one else wanted to fight. We couldn’t fight, so we stood up. We’re still campaigning at super featherweight, but maybe we should have been lighter.
“Another fight with a Venezuelan player was a big step. That boy was a monster. On the second day of weigh-in under the IBF rules, Dana was 62kg, and again, his weight was 63.5kg at 9am on the day of the fight. This Venezuelan man was still in the sauna area losing that weight. He would have 4-5kg on Dana when they entered the ring.
“That fight was a big event on television [in Australia] and it was very hard to lose like that because there was all the commotion about Dana. But he took it in his stride, I took mine and we learned from that.”
Coolwell has established himself in the featherweight division, where he has won six fights, including four by knockout. This recent success has boosted his confidence and the long lead-up to the Carrington fight has given him more time to study his opponent and prepare himself. After a solid training camp in Australia, he arrived in LA more than a month out of the fight and has been working hard at the Matchroom Churchill Gym in Santa Monica, where he has been sparring with Adam ‘Blunose’ Lopez among others. before heading down to Texas before the big show.
Coolwell says he’s ready. Pitt says he’s ready. So how does the battle of Carrington end?
“I raised my hand,” Coolwell said. “I believe that I match well with him and with the things we have been working on, I am confident that I have what it takes to beat him tonight.”
Pitt shares that conviction.
“Dana likes big fights, big atmosphere, and going to the challenge,” said the coach. “He does that all the time, he just rises to the occasion.”
