It’s been a long wait, but ‘Lethal’ Dana Coolwell will finally get the chance to show the world what he’s all about when he takes on highly rated featherweight Bruce Carrington at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on November 15th.
If that date sounds familiar, it should. The eight-round bout will feature on the undercard of the crossover fight between 58-year-old former undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson and YouTuber boxer Jake Paul. The map will be broadcast worldwide by Netflix to their 282 million+ paid subscribers.
“It’s a massive opportunity,” said 25-year-old Coolwell (13-2, 8 knockouts), a proud Mununjali man from the Sunshine Coast hinterland in Queensland, Australia. “I’m very excited about it, especially in my American debut. There is no bigger map to be a part of. I’m just grateful for the opportunity. It took a few days but I’m settling in over here, I had my first sparring and got that out of the way, so now I’m training hard.”
Carrington (13-0, 8 KOs) and Coolwell have been linked for a long time. They were expected to meet on the original date of the Tyson-Paul card at the same venue on July 20 before ‘Iron Mike’ suffered an ulcer flare-up in early June which forced the bout to be postponed. Things hung in the balance for Coolwell for a while and he was unsure if the Carrington battle would continue.
“We weren’t quite sure what happened, we were left in the dark a little bit,” Coolwell said. “I stayed ready, stayed in camp, and we were almost going to do our own thing, but everything turned out.
“I’m just going to go out and do what I do, box, fight and perform. I’m just excited to perform on such a great card, and with all eyes on me, it’s a perfect opportunity to show the world who I am and break into the scene.”
Brooklyn’s Carrington, 27, was on the fast track to success after turning pro three years ago following a decorated amateur 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 by a year, he chose instead to compete at the punch-for- join pay ranks.
But it wasn’t all easy work for Carrington. After initially postponing the Tyson-Paul card, Carrington decided to take an interim fight against Ugandan southpaw Sulaiman Segawa at Madison Square Garden on September 27. That bout, which featured as the opener on the ESPN televised tripleheader headlined by Mikaela Mayer vs. Sandy Ryan, nearly ended in disaster. Segawa came out of the blocks quickly and claimed the first two rounds before Carrington worked his way back into the fight but never looked quite in control. When the dust settled after 10 rounds, it was a majority decision win for Carrington, but it was far from convincing.
“I think he struggled a little bit with the movement,” Coolwell said. “Segawa was also a bit uncomfortable. But I don’t read too much into it because I’m obviously a different fighter. It’s hard to compare because I’m not a southpaw. But I expect the best version of Bruce because he will want to wipe out that fight. I’m just preparing to make sure I show up the best I can be.”
Not everyone thought Carrington, The Ring’s 2023 prospect of the year, deserved the nod. You can count Coolwell’s coach Stephen Pitt among them.
“I thought Sagawa was unlucky not to get the decision,” said Pitt, who has coached Coolwell out of the Hinterland Boxing Club in Beerwah, Queensland since he was an amateur.
But Pitt was quick to add that they are not underestimating Carrington, saying they expect the very best version of The Ring’s No.10-ranked featherweight to arrive.
“We think that Bruce is very sharp and very smart,” 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 cards well for us. Dana just needs to apply his work rate. The eight rounds are a sprint for us, it’s a sprint for Dana.”
Boxing is a sport filled with feel-good stories and the origin story of how Coolwell Pitt met and fell in love with the sweet science is no different. Slightly built, but naturally gifted, Coolwell started playing rugby, but went to the boxing gym in the off-season to stay fit after his mother saw an ad for the boxing gym in the local paper. Coolwell’s father had recently passed away and at the age of 13, his family worried that he might go off the rails.
“I was always a fan of the sport but I was playing rugby for a local club at the time and at first I just wanted to give it a go,” Coolwell recalled. “I found I enjoyed it. Then I started sparring and liked it even more. After finishing the rugby season, I wanted to have my first amateur fight. After that I never looked back.”
It was a chance meeting with Pitt that shaped his destiny as a prizefighter. A former amateur boxer who missed out on going to the Beijing Olympics after losing a qualifying bout to namesake Brad Pitt in 2008, Stephen took a layoff from his role in criminal justice to start his own gym to train boxers in the unpaid ranks. At first he took little notice of the skinny Aboriginal kid hitting the sacks. That was until he saw him struggling.
“I ignored him at first,” Pitt admitted. “But I had a kid I was working with who was going to win titles around the same weight and I needed sparring for him. The kid was in the ring and Dana was sitting there. I clearly remember thinking, ‘he’s just this skinny little boy’. I said, ‘Hey brother, do you want to save?’ I thought he would say no, but immediately he jumped up. He couldn’t control himself.
“I put a head guard on him, put on his gloves, and he had no mouth guard, but he boxed this kid out. I thought it must have been a stroke of luck. So I thought I’d get him back, but he did it again, he boxed this kid out. That’s when I knew he was something special.”
Pitt quickly became a father figure to Coolwell, and later a confidant. There were some tough times, but the two persevered and built as strong a bond as any trainer and fighter in the game.
“I’ve been with Steve from the beginning and I don’t plan on ever changing that throughout my career,” Coolwell said. “We have a good relationship. We both see things and we both can communicate them well. It just works.”
The COVID-19 pandemic was perhaps the most difficult time for the two. Fights were hard to come by and Coolwell took the opportunities when they came, losing the two fights outside his natural weight class.
The first fight he dropped was against local boxer Jake Wyllie at lightweight in October 2021. The second was against Venezuelan southpaw Ender Luces at junior lightweight in April 2022. Coolwell went the distance against both undefeated heavyweights, losing by split decision over 10 frames on each occasion.
“In the Wyllie fight, Dana was 60kg wet wrestled and we fought at lightweight,” said Pitt. “We took that fight because it was during COVID and there was no one else who wanted to fight. We couldn’t fight, so we walked on. We still campaigned at super featherweight, but we probably should have been lighter.
“The other fight with the Venezuelan was a big step up. That guy was a beast. At the second-day weigh-in under IBF rules, Dana was 62kg, again wet, with the cut-off weight being 63.5kg at 9am on the day of the fight. The Venezuelan was still in the sauna and dropped that weight. He would have 4-5kg on Dana when they got in the ring.
“That fight was the main event on TV (in Australia) and it was quite confronting to lose like that because there was all the buzz about Dana. But he took it in his stride, I took it in my stride and we learned from it.”
Coolwell has now established himself in the featherweight division, where he has now won six bouts on the bounce, including four by knockout. This recent success boosted his confidence and the long lead-up to the Carrington fight only gave him more time to study and prepare his opponent. After a solid training camp in Australia, he landed in LA more than a month out from fighting and put in the hard yards at the Matchroom Churchill Gym in Santa Monica, where he sparred 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 Carrington fight end?
“With my hand up,” Coolwell said. “I believe I match up pretty well against him and with the stuff we’ve been working on, I’m confident I have what it takes to beat him on the night.”
Pitt shares that confidence.
“Dana likes the big fights, the big atmosphere and the lifting of the challenge,” the trainer said. “He does it all the time, he just rises to the occasion.”
