Background
Rock was born into a large family in the Blanchardstown area of west Dublin.
Rock was born into a large family in the Blanchardstown area of west Dublin.
Although a natural middleweight, Rock holds a record of being the only boxer to ever hold the Irish professional title at four different weights - light middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight. Family Rock is now married with a young family. Business Out of the ring, Rock is a successful businessman and entrepreneur and runs a car dealership in Dublin, dealing in high class motor vehicles such as Mercedes, Ferrari and Bayerische Motoren Werke. Rock has said that fights for the love of the sport and not the money and has been known to donate the earnings from his fights to charity.
Rock boxed as an amateur prior to turning professional in November 1995.
Rock is a veteran of the Dublin professional fight scene. However, he fights out of the Breen Gym in Belfast.
Rock is a former WAA Inter-Continental European Super Middleweight Title, International Biographic Centre Middleweight Title, WBF Continental European Light Middleweight Title, Irish Light Middleweight Title and Irish Super Middleweight Title holder and current Irish Middleweight Title holder. However, arguably his biggest fight to date was against Margate based Iranian, Mehrdud "Takaloo" Takalobigashi for the WBU Light Middleweight Title which took place in Belfast"s Odyssey Arena in February 2003.
Rock lost this keenly contested fight to an explosive overhand right knock out defeat in the ninth round.
Rock currently fights on promotions which are broadcast on Irish station RTÉ and is unbeaten since 2003. Derry fighter John Duddy has displayed interest in taking on Dubliner for the Irish middleweight title. Duddy"s management attended Rock"s 3 June 2006 fight against Kevin Phelan in Dublin, a seventh round TKO victory for Rock.
The fight was initially scheduled for 29 September 2006 at Madison Square Garden, but has then postponed, for a November 2006 bout in Dublin, Ireland which again did not materialise.
The speculation of a potential superfight against John Duddy continued into 2007 and a bill including a Duddy/Rock match up and a Bernard Dunne title defence was planned for late summer 2007.