McDonagh fought Michael Gomez on 28 January 2006 for the Irish lightweight title on the undercard of a Bernard Dunne fight at the National Stadium, Dublin, Ireland.
[3] The first four rounds were relatively close with Gomez leading according to pundits but the fight ended in the fifth round in bizarre circumstances when for no apparent reason Gomez stopped fighting and failed to defend himself, he then received a number of unanswered punches from McDonagh before being floored.
[2][4][5] The Boxing Union of Ireland (BUI) suspended both fighters purses, and investigated reports of unusual betting patterns and large sums of money being placed on McDonagh to win inside the distance and more specifically in the fifth round after on McDonagh to win the fight in the fifth-round had been cut from 125–1 to 18–1 by the afternoon of the bout.
Following an investigation, the BUI released the purses to each of the fighters, stating "Michael Gomez and Peter McDonagh confirmed that neither they, their families, nor any person in their camp, as far as they were aware, betted on the fight", but expressing disappointment that the bookmaker Boylesports, who had suspended wagering on the bout due to the unusual betting patterns, had chosen not to reply to the investigators' queries.
McDonagh, meanwhile, claimed that he had won because Uri Geller had helped him mentally prepare for the fight.