In his own words, much of the past two years has been "horrible" for Emmet Brennan, but he is ready to put that all behind him in the coming months as he finally gets his chance in the professional ranks.
The Dubliner, who turned 32 last month, achieved a lifelong dream by fighting at the Olympic Games in July 2021, but it has been anything but a smooth road for the proud North Strand man since.
Brennan qualified for the Games with a shoulder injury, which still wasn't healed when he got to Tokyo. In fact, it would be well over a year after the Olympics before it started to improve following a failed surgery.
With it incredibly difficult to reap the rewards Olympic athletes often get after the Games due to the injury, he began drinking heavily and admits he was in a low place.
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Brennan told the Irish Mirror: "I went and got surgery, then the surgery wasn't really working so it was like 10 months post-Olympics and I still couldn't box. I couldn't reap the rewards of what the Olympics gave me. I started drinking very hard because of that. I wouldn't say I was in complete depression, but I remember listening to Greg O'Shea talking about how he just felt lost and pretty low in his life and that's exactly where I was.
"I went over to New York in March 2022 and I went over to try finally get my professional career on track. I went over there for 10 weeks and I was drinking six nights a week and when I say drinking I was drinking like 10 hours a day.
"I really let myself go and any chances I had of boxing wee diminishing by the day. It was just a very, very hard time in my life because I was in the complete opposite direction to where I was 12 months previously.
"The previous year I'd qualified for the Olympics, the world was at my feet, and here I was in New York becoming a nuisance and a hindrance to people. All I wanted to do was drink and party and I didn't want the party to end.
"I came back from New York, I was like 'I'm giving up the alcohol and getting this pro career on track, try to get the shoulder right'."
And now some 13 months later, Brennan is preparing to make his professional debut in Belfast's Europa Hotel on July 1, but there has been plenty of hard work to get to this stage, with the Dubliner also running boxing classes in his community over the past year.
"I put the head down straight away, gave up the drink, and really worked on myself again", said Brennan. "I was trying to get into professional boxing, but it took me another six months to get the shoulder right.
"Tommy Brennan from the Pain & Performance Clinic in Lucan, I wouldn't be going pro right now if it wasn't for him. I was going in for a second shoulder surgery and by luck I found Tommy a week before and he said 'you don't need a second shoulder surgery'.
"He told me if I got the second surgery that I'd have to retire. He's an absolute genius, he got me back boxing within four months with physio work so a big shout out to him.
"That led me into September/ October. I was still trying to get into boxing, trying to fight, trying to find the right manager, trying to find the right promoter and at 31/32 nobody wants to really take a chance on you."
But eventually he linked up with a strong team in former IBF world middleweight champion Darren Barker and Joe Calzaghe, a two-time unified super-middleweight world champion who won six world titles in two weight classes.
Barker has strong links with Eddie Hearn's Matchroom Boxing and Brennan is confident both the Englishman and Wales' Calzaghe can open plenty of doors for him if he puts the work in.
"I have no doubt they are going to do great things for my career," declared the super-middleweight, who is aiming to get up to world level over the coming years.
"They have great links but it's my job now to get a few good wins. I need a few knockouts, exciting fights and maybe a Celtic title or an Irish title. Once I have them in the first three, four or five fights, Darren is the man to open doors and so can Joe as well so they'll be able to do that once I do the work in the ring.
"If I could get the Celtic title in my second or third fight and then go for the Irish title in my fourth or fifth fight, that would be unbelievable, although maybe a small bit unrealistic, but I'm trying to be ambitious and that's the route I really want to go.
"Then if you do that, you're giving Darren the tools to go and work with the likes of Matchroom and get on to something bigger."
At 32, Brennan is a lot older than most turning professional, but he can take inspiration from fellow Irish fighters such as Dennis Hogan and Eric Donovan, who both won belts in the latter stages of their career - Hogan, the IBO world super welterweight title at 37, and Donovan, the EBU European Union super featherweight belt at the same age.
"I keep in contact with these guys as well because I want to know what they were doing and what's their secret," says Brennan. "I already know it's about being dedicated to your craft and not spending your nights out drinking, but spending your nights resting and spending your days training.
"A lot of fighters sort of get controlled by the sport, but you have to be happy outside the sport too. I'm a very happy person at the moment in my personal life and that really transfers over into what you're going to do in your sporting life and how long you're going to stay in it.
"Me and Darren have come up with a five-year plan that we'll sit down and go over in two years, but it is eventually to get up to world level. But we're not stupid and we're not naïve, we've got a little less time than the average person so probably in the next 18-24 months, we are going to have to take a few calculated risks and go after a few of the bigger guys.
"Once you beat them, that opens up a world of options."
Emotion all came out in interview after Olympics defeat
Emmet Brennan couldn't hold back the tears as he spoke on live TV following his Olympics defeat.
He was beaten by Uzbekistan's Dilshod Ruzmetov in the Light Heavyweight Round of 32 in Tokyo and having worked incredibly hard through injury and while working part-time in a gym to fund his Olympic dream, he let it all out as he spoke to RTE's Des Cahill after the bout.
Because he was not receiving funding, Brennan admits he was under an "incredible amount of stress financially" to make the Games and recalls one period ahead of a tournament in Ukraine where he was either working or training for 45 days prior to it.
He said: "I remember I boxed in Ukraine in 2019 for the national team and I hadn't had a rest day between work and training in 45 days before the tournament. I went 45 days training and working non-stop up until competing for my country.
"It was just something that had to be done but there were obviously doubts of why isn't the national team putting their hand out and trying to help me or make things a little bit easier.
"Those little doubts do emotionally make it a little bit tougher for you and in that interview you did see a lot of emotion, but that interview was literally the last four or five years of graft coming out. It was literally such a slog to get there and when I got there I was injured.
"Before that interview nobody knew that for six months before that I was injured. I actually qualified for the Games with two injuries, I hadn't trained properly in eight weeks. I remember Bernard Dunne saying 'I saw what you had to do to qualify'. For a person to qualify for the Olympic Games, which is the pinnacle of sport, while injured it's incredible.
"For me qualifying was all the hard work I did previously, all those days working in the gym and the hardship I went through to get there, I was not letting this moment go and that's a big reason for how I got over the line injured."
The people of the North Strand support their own and Brennan was paraded through the streets of his community with his friend and Olympic teammate Kellie Harrington days after her gold medal win.
Murals of the pair were given the green light by Dublin City Council earlier this year after a spot on the North Strand Road was chosen for the artwork.
Brennan still has New York dream
Things might not have gone to plan for Emmet Brennan in New York last year, but he would love to give boxing in the Big Apple a second go at some stage.
The 32-year-old was due to link up with New York-based Derry native and Madison Square Garden legend John Duddy, who never tasted defeat in nine fights at the Mecca of Boxing, and Brennan had pleaded with Eddie Hearn for a spot on the undercard of Katie Taylor's historic bout with Amanda Serrano last year.
However, he admits it was a blessing in disguise that he never got on the card as he would have had to pull out due to his shoulder injury.
"We have the option of New York because I was obviously a different person when I was there," says Brennan. "If I went back to New York, there would be no drinking, it would be business only.
"I've a lot of friends over there and I've got a really good potential setup over there.
"The plan the last time was for John Duddy to be my coach, it wasn't 100% confirmed, but we had a few conversations and that was the plan for John to be my coach.
"I still have a dream in my head of fighting in Madison Square Garden and fighting out of New York so that could be something for six months down the line because I've a lot of friends over there and I've a lot of friends that are involved in GAA and a few of the clubs that would be big ticket sellers for me so I do have the potential to do major tickets in New York.
"John Duddy was the last person to do major tickets. He was doing like 4-5,000 tickets. I'm not saying I'd be at that level but I could do one or two thousand if things were done right.
"There's a real gap over there because nobody has done it since him. No one has gone over and gone around the Irish community like John did and it could be worth exploring that option as well."
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