Seanie Monaghan roars back into the ring to defeat Castaneda

Nearly a year after his last fight, Long Beach resident and professional boxer “Irish” Seanie Monaghan defeated opponent Fernando Castaneda on Dec. 10 at CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Neb.

The light heavyweight fight was the undercard of the main bout between Terence Crawford and John Molina.

Monaghan and Castaneda exchanged some vicious blows throughout the 10-round fight — the judges eventually ruled in favor of Monaghan, and he remains undefeated at 28-0, with 17 knockouts.

“I was a little rusty being out of the ring for so long,” said Monaghan, who last fought in February when he defeated Janne Forsman at The Theatre at Madison Square Garden. “The guy was tougher than I expected — physically, I didn’t think he’d be able to do anything. I wasn’t thrilled with the performance, but that’s what a tune-up fight is for.”

Monaghan attributed the lag between fights to contract negotiations with Top Rank Inc., which has promoted many of the top boxers from around the world, including Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez.

“My contract was running out and they were trying to negotiate a new deal, and it was taking a while,” he said.

Monaghan is the current North American Boxing Organization and WBC Continental Americas light heavyweight champion, and is now the third-ranked light heavyweight in the world.

A week after Monaghan’s win, professional boxer — and fellow Long Islander — Joe Smith defeated Bernard Hopkins in a ninth-round TKO to win the WBC International Light Heavyweight title on Dec. 17 at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif.

An HBO commentator asked Smith after the fight whether a bout against Monaghan was in the cards.

“I’m up for anything,” Smith said. “Everybody here would love to see that fight — and everyone back home would really love to see it.”

Monaghan and Smith have history — before he began his professional boxing career, Monaghan narrowly lost to Smith in the finals of the Golden Gloves at Madison Square Garden in 2007.

“Me and Joe have a long history with each other,” Monaghan said. “I only had a handful of fights then and didn’t know what I was doing. Most people felt I won the fight and people have said that they want to see it again. There’s always been a buzz in New York about seeing a rematch.”

Monaghan said he’s hoping a fight takes place sometime next year, ideally at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum when it reopens in April. Coincidentally, the date marks the 10-year anniversary of their last fight.

“A fight with me and Joe is not an undercard type of fight — it’s a main event deal,” Monaghan said. “And opening the Nassau Coliseum would be really cool.”