Diri Me, What a Fight!

Josh Diri steals the show at St Andrews Fight Night

“St Andrews, are you not entertained?” 

Josh Diri bellowed the famous quote from Gladiator over the Kinkell Byre PA system after defeating Will Nugent in Fight Night’s main event. The fourth-year’s antics were more Jake Paul than Russell Crowe, but the crowd lapped it up.

Diri-Nugent was the talking point going into this year’s Fight Night. For months, the pair’s feud has been the worst-kept secret in town. The fight reportedly came about after an altercation between the two at last year's Charity Oktoberfest.

The Saint approached both Diri and Nugent for a comment before the fight, but a response was not forthcoming. 

Twenty kilograms heavier than his opponent, Diri was the clear favourite. 

His advantage showed in the opening round with Diri knocking Nugent’s seemingly ill-fitting headguard off on several occasions. This clearly unnerved Nugent, who was on the back foot from the beginning.

The second round was similarly one-sided, with Diri bloodying Nugent’s nose. 

The blood-smeared Nugent heroically fought back in the third and final round of a fiery encounter, the crowd roaring as he landed several hefty blows on his rival.

There was certainly no love lost between the boxers, who fought with all the aggression of two Kinnesburn ducks scrapping over the last morsel of Hovis. 

Ultimately, Nugent’s comeback came too late, and the judges declared Diri the winner by a points decision.

“Obviously, the heavier guy is going to win in three rounds,” Cyrus Howbrook, a local boxing expert, said. “Another couple of rounds and Nugent could’ve had that.”

Diri and Nugent shook hands after the fight in a rare sign of respect. Whether they can put their conflict behind them remains to be seen. 

There was controversy earlier in the night when the judges declared a draw between two fighters.

A witness backstage recalled one of the fighters saying, “Look at [the other fighter's] face [which was covered in blood] and tell me that’s a f***ing draw.”

It is also reported that the fighter said they planned to keep her blood-soaked glove as a trophy.

The biggest upset came when Lucas ‘Flash’ Gordon defeated the more experienced Brodie Dougan by technical knockout.

“I’m just glad Flash Gordon could save the universe,” Gordon told The Saint. “I bleached my hair blonde. There’s only so much aura you can lose in one night, so I’m glad I won.”

Elodie Cowan put on a similarly commanding display, defeating opponent Eleanor Francis.

“When you step into the ring, you forget most of what you planned and just start hitting,” Cowan told The Saint. “Looking back, I probably should have done a bit more sparring and high-pressure situations.”

Whilst Cowan was reliant on good old-fashioned grit and determination, some fighters took their training regimes extremely seriously. 

Greg Chang, who defeated Ektor Kantouras, employed the services of a former Marine as part of his training programme. 

Oliver Clarke, Chang’s coach, was full of praise for the Hong Kong native. 

“I coach a lot of beginners, but Greg is different,” Clarke told The Saint. “He worked his arse off in training and thoroughly deserved the win.”

A lot of work goes into the boxers’ five minutes of fame. “It’s bittersweet,” Ella Wilson, who saw off Liv Douglas in the first fight of the night, told The Saint. “After six weeks of training and getting close to the other fighters, it feels like a bit of a comedown.”

The intense training regimes paid off for the winning fighters. Harriet Bayne triumphed over Eliza Tetley before Ben Gillies beat Harry James.

Caden Ferguson and Kate Thomson were the night’s other victors, warming the crowd up for the main event with edge-of-your-seat entertainment. 

This year’s event partnered with Conviction, a new “free-to-play prediction” platform established by St Andrews students. Ticket holders could stake points on their predictions to be in with a chance of winning a cash prize. It can’t be long before Paddy Power gets involved. 

Even without gambling, Fight Night is a mouth-watering proposition. Rather than standing around listening to Katy Perry, as is the case at many a St Andrews event, the audience is treated to watching their peers knock seven bells out of each other. 

The pull of the event was clear as the moccasin-clad masses flocked to Kinkell Byre for the Tuesday night showdown. 

Some students even showed up without tickets. “We parked in a nearby woods,” one punter told The Saint. “We managed to sneak in over a wall around the back.” 

Roman satirist Juvenal coined the term ‘bread and circuses’ to describe how gladiatorial spectacles could distract citizens from political injustice. 

In St Andrews, it’s more ‘prosecco and circuses’ but, nevertheless, the St Andrews gladiators provided the crowd with a welcome distraction from deadlines and 9am lectures. 

Photo by Tate Sedwick