But the youngster from the Northside’s Cabra Boxing Club says the following day, March 15, will mean just as much to him as what happens the evening before. Flood was just eight years old when his mum Cleevla passed away.

Mother’s Day, which falls on Sunday in the UK and Ireland this year, has always been a poignant occasion for him and his family.

“People always talk about timing in boxing,” Flood tells The Ring. “For my pro debut to fall on my 21st birthday is one thing, but for it to be Mother’s Day the next feels special. It just feels like a nice little touch from my ma at the same time. “There have been a few dates put forward for my debut but they’ve all fallen through. Now I’m glad they did because this one is a poignant one. My coach Stephen Smith told me ‘you only get one debut’ so you have to enjoy it and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Flood will feature on the Queensberry Promotions card topped by Jazza Dickens’ WBA junior lightweight title defense against Anthony Cacace, which will be shown live on DAZN. The fight, against Hungarian Bela Istvan Orban (6-19-2, 4 KOs), represents the next step on a journey which has been going on for just about as long as Flood can remember. “It has always been boxing for me,” he says. “My dad got me into it from a very young age and that was that really. “Back then he decided he wanted to become a coach so he opened up his own club and it all took off from there then. I was three or four when I joined the club I guess, but I had been doing pads with him when I was two in our apartment.

"I’ve always had a choice about whether or not I wanted to do it, and apart from one or two times where I’ve questioned if I’m in the right game I have stuck with it.”

Those rare moments, usually caused by injuries, means Flood has walked the archetypal boxing road of teen sacrifice.

“It was tough growing up in that sense,” he says. “Obviously you see all your mates go to parties and stuff like that but I’m in the gym on a Friday night making weight for tournaments that weekend. But, honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

When he reflects on those early days, Flood can see how the devastating loss of his mother shaped his relationship with the sport and indeed his own father, too.

“I was only young when I lost her,” he says before pausing. “And where I’m from there’s not that many people who do well.

“So my dad was looking at the situation like, this kid can live his life in the gym with me or he could probably go down a different road so I’m going to keep him in the gym. That’s how he kept me on the straight and narrow and that’s why we are here today.”

There are incredibly high hopes for Flood in Irish boxing circles, given he won 10 national titles and a European Youth gold medal during a glittering career in the unpaid ranks. Unsurprisingly, the 20-year-old is aiming equally high as a professional.

“I want to be world champion within five years,” says the junior middleweight, who has targeted five fights before the end of 2026. “So given I turn 21 on the day I make my debut, let’s say I want that belt around my shoulder by the time I’m 26. Ideally, a few of them but I know it’s about the right fights at the right time.

“For now it’s about doing the business on my debut. I won’t really be celebrating my birthday. I don’t drink or smoke so I’ll just go back to bed after the fight.

"Then on the Sunday I’ll be chilling and thinking of my ma.”

The Gerbasi Corner honors longtime Ring Magazine and boxing contributor Tom Gerbasi, who passed away suddenly on Sept. 15, 2025. A 2024 Nat Fleischer Award winner for excellence in boxing journalism, Gerbasi took particular joy in telling the stories of up-and-coming and unheralded prospects in the sport.