A journeyman boxer who fought the likes of Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury has admitted nothing prepared him for being caught up in the Regency Hotel shooting.
Heavyweight Paul Butlin, 40, was at the hotel for a weigh-in when a gunmen opened fire and killed Dublin gangster David Byrne in February 2016.
Byrne was blasted to death inside the Northside Dublin venue as he was attending the Clash of the Clans event.
The intended target was Daniel Kinahan, who was involved in a boxing gym in Marbella at the time.
It is suspected that it was a Hutch strike back in revenge for a previous murder.
English boxer Butlin was at the hotel to face fellow heavyweight Sean ‘Big Sexy’ Turner when the manic scenes unfolded.
He told: “When I worked on the door, I was bottled and had knives pulled on me, but I’ve never been through anything like that.
“I’d just weighed in when we heard a bang and the whole crowd shifted. Carl [his manager] just shot out of a side door straight away and I followed him.
"We headed down an alleyway and heard another bang. People were falling over each other."
He added to boxingnewsonline: "Everyone was panicking and Carl was saying: ‘Someone’s been shot.’
"We saw some lads carrying someone out of the hotel and trying to stop a car. I wanted to go and help, but Carl told me to leave it.”
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