'Everyone knows who he is now' - trainer Michael Ballingall's high praise for Portsmouth's Mikey McKinson mental toughness to keep his cool during dramatic first American adventure
Trainer Michael Ballingall hailed his man Mikey McKinson's strength of character after he stood tall to deliver on his American debut on what proved to be a whirlwind fight week.
The tricky Pompey southpaw saw both Vergil Ortiz Jr and Mexican Jesus Perez forced to pull out of scheduled bouts before eventually getting the business done with a comfortable unanimous decision victory over Chicago's Alex Martin at the Galen Centre.
In a challenging few days in the lead up to extending his perfect professional record to 22-0, there were also numerous other names put to McKinson as Golden Boy Promotions desperately attempted to ensure the show went on for the British fighter.
McKinson's, 27, father and trainer Ballingall reckons the events in the build-up would have been a 'head mess' for anyone.
But corner man Ballingall was full of praise at how McKinson kept his cool during what turned out to be such a frantic period.
‘The thing is, he's sacrificed the past four months training, so there was no way on this earth that he wanted to give up anything having actually got here as well,’ said trainer Ballingall.
‘The amount of opponents that we had in the past four days is absolutely unbelievable - that would be a head mess on its own - but he dealt with it.
‘He ended up agreeing to what was the only opponent left, they were pulling out for all different reasons.
‘The main thing is he's made his debut on a massive platform in Los Angeles and everyone knows who he is now.’
McKinson might have come out a comfortable winner on all three of the judges' cards, yet Ballingall conceded it was far from a vintage performance.
But he felt neither fighter was helped with their opponent adopting a very similar styles - while Martin's 'negative' approach made things even trickier.
Balligall added: ‘We got it out the way, it's not what we wanted - two back-foot southpaws fighting each other.
‘Listen, Alex Martin is a very slick and skilful fighter himself, but he was being very, very negative. Obviously he just wanted to get through.
‘At one point, it looked like he was just trying to get through the fight but he did late in the fight.’