Johnny Fisher: The Fear No Heavyweight Admits (It’s Not Pain!)

Professional heavyweight boxer Johnny Fisher joins Matt for a raw conversation about mindset, discipline, pressure, and the business behind modern boxing. From debuting in a pitch-black COVID venue to building one of British boxing’s most commercially powerful fanbases, Johnny shares the psychological and strategic realities of the sport that most fighters never talk about.

Johnny breaks down the fear no boxer admits to, not fear of being hit, but fear of underperforming, and how he channels pressure into performance. He explains why commercial value now matters just as much as skill, and how fighters build careers through branding, storytelling, and audience connection. This episode is packed with insights that apply far beyond boxing: mindset, consistency, personal branding, and the ability to perform when it matters.

Whether you’re building a business, growing a personal brand, or pushing for the next level in your career, Johnny’s mentality and process offer a masterclass in discipline, entrepreneurial success, and performance growth.

What We Discuss:

• Johnny’s journey from debuting during COVID to becoming a fan favourite in British boxing.
• The mindset of a fighter: confidence, fear, belief, and performance under pressure
• The real fear in boxing, not getting hurt, but not performing to your standard.
• Why commercial value matters: brand, visibility, storytelling & fan engagement.
• Training discipline: twice-a-day fight camps, nutrition, routine & sacrifices.
• Joshua vs Ngannou, Fury analysis & heavyweight predictions from inside the sport.

Timestamps:
(00:00) “I can stop him in one round” — power, belief & confidence
(00:06) Johnny’s 2021 debut — no fans, full pressure, and the COVID fight experience
(00:14) The psychology of weigh-ins and the “I’m going to kill you” mentality
(00:20) Convincing yourself you have the tools to win
(00:21) How he eats, trains & prepares (including the famous Big John Chinese)
(00:28) Fight camp intensity — twice-a-day sessions & discipline
(00:35) Fear: why underperforming is the real danger
(00:40) The business of boxing: followings, fame & commercial value
(00:51) Joshua vs Ngannou, Fury talk & the state of the heavyweight division

Resources & Links:
Instagram @johnnyfisher1

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Chapters

• 0:00 Opening Stakes And Ngannou Talk
• 2:49 Meet Johnny Fisher: Origin Story
• 5:20 Rugby Lessons And Feeling Like An Outsider
• 7:10 Boxing As A Solitary Craft
• 8:53 Education, Work Ethic, And University
• 12:18 COVID, Family Business, And Finishing The Degree
• 15:14 Debut Fight In Lockdown And Managing Nerves
• 18:40 Fear, Mindset, And Competitive Instinct
• 20:19 Hype Vs Quiet Confidence
• 21:53 Subscribe Push And Show Growth Goal
• 22:33 Life In Camp: Training And Recovery
• 26:02 Sleep, Breathing, Grounding, And Marginal Gains
• 28:01 Food, Calories, And Heavyweight Nutrition
• 30:06 Sauna, Cold Plunge, And Recovery Science
• 31:18 Hearing The Corner And Trusting Coaching
• 34:09 Keep It Simple: Don’t Overcomplicate Training
• 36:03 Heavyweight Limits, Size, And Style Matchups
• 38:09 Hard Fights, Injuries, And Learning Wins
• 41:04 Money, Tickets, And Building A Following
• 44:06 Sponsors, Authenticity, And Community Support
• 46:08 Camp Costs, Cancellations, And Risk
• 49:10 Spending, Investing, And Family Priorities
• 51:12 Relationships, Obsession, And Focus
• 53:05 Handling Hate And Why Brand Matters
• 55:06 YouTubers, Marketing, And Lessons For Pros
• 57:13 State Of Heavyweights And Dream Fights

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

I reckon I've got a good chance against him, Ganna, yeah. You reckon you could take him out in in one round?

SPEAKER_02: 0:04

I've got the power to stop him 100%. Mr. Johnny Fisher, February 2021, debut fight. He didn't have an audience. Didn't have an audience, you're pitch black. It was just people in COVID suits.

SPEAKER_00: 0:12

When you see people at the way, and I'm gonna kill you, I'm gonna kill you. You convince yourself that you're better than the other person, or you've at least got the tools to be able to do damage and win. How are you in your trickers? Very good, very good. If you see me on Instagram and social media, you know I love a Chinese on my bad job. Talk me through your training regime. If you're in the depth of camp and you're six weeks out from the fight, you've probably trained twice a day from Monday to Friday. Do you ever get scared? I might get hurt here. No, never, never in your brain, but there is a fear for f are all the big earners, the big followed people, you've got to all have a commercial value, right? To be big in boxing or to get people to tune in to watch. You can get that through just being unbelievably good.

SPEAKER_02: 0:49

Francis Ngarnu and Joshua fight recently ended in a decisive victory for uh Joshua.

SPEAKER_00: 0:54

It's what is to be expected, really. It didn't happen a few months ago when Fury fought Nganu, and a lot of people fought Nganu won. I personally thought Fury won.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08

Francis Ngarnu uh and and Joshua fight recently, I mean uh March the 8th, so uh what were we on uh a couple of weeks ago from when we're recording this now, uh ended in a decisive victory for uh Joshua. What's um what's your thoughts on the fight?

SPEAKER_00: 1:20

Yeah, it was it's what is to be expected really. Um if a UFC champion comes into boxing, that's what a lot of the boxing public expected to happen. But it didn't happen a few months ago when Fury fought uh Nganu. A lot of people were picking Nganu to be beat in one or two rounds, and he actually only lost narrowly on points to Nganu. A lot of people uh to Fury and a lot of people thought Nganu won. I personally thought Fury won by a couple of rounds, but didn't have the best performance. So what that has done for the heavyweight division is galvanised a bit of interest in Fury versus Joshua again now because that contrast between the two the two performances shows that the gap might have narrowed between Fury and Joshua. I'm very I'm interested no matter what to see them two fight. You said you reckon you could take him out in in one round. I reckon I've got a good chance against N'Gano, yeah. I've got the power to stop him 100%. How do you get a fight like that? You've got to build up your profile, you've got to get a lot more fights under your belt, and you've got to have uh I'm not in a position really where and I'm I wasn't saying that in a way to call him out because I'm respectful of the position I'm in. I've not achieved what Nganu's achieved in the UFC realm. I've I'm respectful of his journey, but someone just asked me, and I'm always honest, I think I've got a good chance against N'Ganu. And uh I think the way that Joshua dealt with him shows that he's not a boxer. If I went into the UFC cage, it'd be a different story, but he's not a boxer, and I am, and I can punch as hard as most people out there, and if I land on his chin, he'll probably go down as well. Just as like if Nganu landed on my chin, there's a good chance he goes down. But um, yeah, I'll always be honest and I'll always back myself.

SPEAKER_02: 2:49

Guys, welcome to Stripping Off with Matt Haycox, where we strip off our guests to learn their story and find out what what they're made of and what we can learn from them. And today's guest is clearly made of six foot something of solid muscle. I'm glad he's I'm glad he's a few feet away from me, just in case, just in case I say anything I shouldn't do. Uh but no, he is a knockout guest, he's a heavyweight champion, and he's none other than the Rumford Bell Rumford Bell. That's a pretty name that one. The Romford Bull, yeah, much fiercer. Uh Mr. Johnny Fisher. Johnny, welcome to the show. Thanks very much, Matt.

SPEAKER_00: 3:23

Thanks for having me on.

SPEAKER_02: 3:24

Uh listen, we were we were having a good chat before we started, and uh, you know, it was interesting to learn some bits about your story, which I think you're 25, you just said. 25, yeah. You're 25, such a busy and already diverse story. Uh, I mean, I don't think anyone expects a heavyweight boxer, first of all, to have come from a different sport of rugby, which is uh uh I guess impressive and is changing of itself, but to then have studied history at uni, to have wanted to be a barrister, uh, and then have made these changes. Uh I'm sure, I'm sure there's going to be some interesting stories to tell. So let's uh take it back to your childhood and uh and tell me uh tell me what you were like as a kid and where all this began.

SPEAKER_00: 3:59

Yeah, um this is something that gets spoken a lot about my rugby background, but to be honest, boxing was the first love always. I boxer member of I've laced up a pair of gloves when I was four or five years old and went to Onga ABC as my first uh as my first amateur club. Done a lot of gym shows there, they called them. So, like when you were before 11 years old, you do gym shows and have them sort of fights before you get carded and become an amateur boxer. I then had ten amateur fights, six of them were before I broke my hand playing rugby. What age is this teenager? This is like up to the age of fourteen. So I'd had I'd had some gym shows, and then I had six junior fights, and then I played rugby at the first six form I went to, Cooper's, uh my sixth form that I went to Cooper's after I went to Marshall's at secondary school, and uh broke my hand in the first ever game I played. And I wasn't really clued up on rugby, but I loved it, and I was aggressive, and I loved playing with my mates, and I learnt as I went. And for the next two, three years I went to Exeter, played rugby there, was in the uh the first team for the freshers who were there, and it was really high level. And uh I wasn't really experienced in rugby, and all these boys have come from very, very great schools, and um it was great to learn and pick their brains and be in a completely different environment. And I think that was the first taste of what high-level professional sport would would have be like would be like for me in that in the weights rooms with the with the high performance programmes we had, that stood me in good stead. But boxing was always the sport I wanted to do since I was young, and I'd done a little bit more of it for a bit of fitness for the rugby on the side, had a couple of knockout wins at amateur level, and then um started spying a guy called Joe Joyce and a guy called Dave Allen. Covid came round, and it seemed like my childhood dream of being a boxer was was coming back, and I thought why not give it a go? Don't know how far I'll get, and uh I've still got that mentality. I don't ever look too far ahead, and now I'm eleven fights in, ten knockouts, eleven wins, and uh I'm feeling in a good place.

SPEAKER_02: 5:46

What kind of I guess similarities or parallels could you draw between rugby and boxing, if any? I mean, I guess all sports have the similarities, but I mean one you're on your own, the other you're part of a team, and they're both quite quite rough sports, very rough sports. Any learning experiences from one you take to the other?

SPEAKER_00: 6:03

Definitely. When I went to Exeter and I first went to the pre-season there, and I was a newbie to rugby basically. I played one season, a couple of seasons at my my sixth form, and there was the idea of I was on my own as well, because it was very, very cutthroat. All the boys at Exeter come from nice posh schools, good privileged backgrounds. There was a few normal kids like me, but I was not outcasted, but I wasn't in the clique of the the Bronze Grove boys or the the Millfield boys who'd been to these these proper rugby colleges, and uh I felt like an outsider, and you weren't made to feel welcome uh by by the other boys because everyone's in competition with each other. But that camaraderie grew, and a lot of the boys, not just me, you mature as you get older from 18, 19, 20, you become mates at the end of it. But there was that there was that outsider feeling I had at the beginning, and um I made some great friends. I had a great time at Exeter, but that sort of mentality of being on your own, I got that from from the Exeter days as well, right at the beginning, and you learn to deal with that, and it that hardened me a little bit being an outsider there. It was great.

SPEAKER_02: 7:00

Do you feel I mean they say you feel alone anyway, or you felt alone, but do you feel more alone as a boxer where it is truly you on your own, or do you still consider yourself part of a team because they are the team that make you?

SPEAKER_00: 7:12

You have a team. I've got great trainers, I've got great strength and condition, I've got managers, promoters, but boxing is truly a sport where you're alone, and I don't mind that to be honest. Listen, I do when I say I was alone at in rugby, you you're not alone, but you you you have to gel and become a team and you have to become friends with them boys, and you eventually do. And I do miss that team spirit you've got when you're getting smashed by another team, but you're giving it 110%. I do miss their memories going to whales and playing on a cold, dark, dreary night over there. I miss that, but boxing truly is a special sport, like any combat sport where you're on your own. You are truly, once that bell goes and everyone gets out of the ring, all the ring announcers, promoters get out, it's just you versus another bloke and everyone's watching you, and there's nothing more that can be done, so it truly is you on your own.

SPEAKER_02: 7:53

Just to wrap up your kind of teenage years, you wouldn't expect a boxer to have got a degree in history to have wanted to be a barrister. I mean, just tell me a bit about uh your educational career and your uh I guess were you a good student, you know, what what made you want to go down that route?

SPEAKER_00: 8:06

Well, I've not I've just come from a normal background like myself. I wasn't poor, I wasn't rich, just a normal background, and I've got to got I've got to give a lot of credit to my mum and dad because they taught me the value of hard work. And when you come from a normal background, I think you appreciate the value of hard work because you're not getting nothing or you're not getting everything, you're just working for what you've got. And my dad and my mum always said, try hard at school. You try hard at school, you try hard at everything you do in life. Some people don't do very well at school, and that doesn't matter. You can you can find your calling in something else. But I was always that kid who I remember my I first went went to my secondary school in Marshalls in year seven, and I'd done the CATS test, which is like an entry exam. And uh my dad went to a parents evening, like for the fit for the for the results, and I had like threes out of ten, fours out of ten, and then all my mates' parents were sitting there and they're they'd had eights out of ten, nines out of tens, and that made me feel terrible. I wanted to be I wanted to I wanted to be in the in the top echelon, and then from that moment I think there was a switch in me, and I just wanted to try out everything. I loved history, English, I loved writing essays. I became head boy of my school in U11. I loved trying to be the best at it. I I treated it like a competition, and I did have an interest in a lot of the subjects I was doing. I think, yeah, I I got the highest grades at GCSE at my school at Marshall's Park, and then I got two A stars and an A level in history, geography, and politics, and I just took that competitive nature of it because everyone loves to win. If you don't win, you don't win, you take it on the chin. But I used that mentality like I had in boxing or rugby and any other sports I did at school, and I I took it into the classroom and thought, right, I want to try and do the best I can. And I think that's not just for school, that's for sport, that's for everyday life. Do the best you can. If you do if you do great, you do great, but as long as you tried your best, it don't matter. Did you start uni or go did you go to uni? Yeah, I went to Exeter and um studied history and then I started playing rugby when I was there and I finished it.

SPEAKER_02: 9:52

Oh, you did finish uni?

SPEAKER_00: 9:53

Yeah, I finished it. So basically it was uh I've done three years there, and the last year was when COVID hit. And I was actually in Las Vegas at the time when COVID hit aspira and Joe Joyce. And it was like the middle of the last year of uni. And I was already debating whether to go to Vegas because I'd got to finish my dissertation and all that, and that was going to be a distraction in itself. And then COVID happened, and then my dad's business, we had to go and we had to we had to change the whole outlook of it. Used to sell cheese, and then we started selling meat on the van instead because all the restaurants were shut, we had no one to supply, so we started doing home deliveries of cheese and meat to people's houses. So I'd wake up at eight, nine o'clock in the morning, not too early, but we wouldn't finish till 2 am doing our deliveries, and then I'd come home do my dissertation until about 4am, and then I'd train in the garden till about 5am, and then wake up and do it all again six days a week. And it was a tough time, but I really liked it and really enjoyed it as well because it felt like I was doing something that meant something, not only for my degree and me training our trying to keep it the boxing, but keeping mum and dad's business alive, and um it felt like we were doing something good, but I wouldn't want to do it again, definitely not. But COVID was a tough time for a lot of people, and uh yeah, I'm glad I finished that degree because I could have easily turned around in the midst of going to Vegas and doing all this stuff for my dad in lockdown and saying I'll just forget about the degree, I know I'm gonna be a boxer after this, but I'm glad I stuck at it because I've got that now.

SPEAKER_02: 11:10

How do you train or work on your mindset? Are you still a learner? You know, would you do you do you still I would imagine that after going through your degree and loving history and liking writing essays, you do you still read books, do you still learn things, take courses?

SPEAKER_00: 11:22

I I enjoy um it's more just like it's not so much taking courses, but I just I've got an a fascination with history and I love I love watching old war films and things like that. I think it extends from my days of my dad and my granddad watching old cowboy films and World War II films, and um it's more like watching little documentaries that come up on YouTube and uh I love learning about Napoleon and uh Alexander the Great and people like that, and um I've got a fascination with it, and uh I always will be a learner in that sense, and I try and take that attitude into what I do as well because the moment you shut yourself off from learning anything, especially in boxing, you go backwards, you've got to keep adapting, and um I try and take that into boxing.

SPEAKER_02: 12:01

Did I read something? I may have I may have misunderstood it then because you know you told me you finished the degree, but I thought I read that you that you went to Vegas to do that sparring at the expense of your degree or there was something there.

SPEAKER_00: 12:13

I was on track for a first class degree with the time that I'd have to devote to sparring and the training camp because it wasn't just sparring, I was doing the whole I was do using it as a way to gain experience learning off Joe Joyce, doing the whole training camp with him. I went to my like faculty, my faculty department, and they said, listen, you're probably gonna end up with a 2-1, but a 2-1 gives me the access to all the careers anyway. And I'm not too bothered about getting a first class or what I think it's the fact that I went to university, I'd done a degree, and I think it's more impressive that I managed to finish it whilst doing the sparring with Joe Joyce. I think that would have added another dimension to getting a degree, so yeah, I sacrificed getting the first class, but there would have been no guarantee of me getting a first anyway, even if I stayed at home. So I'm glad I did it.

SPEAKER_02: 12:53

So February 2021, yeah, debut fight. I mean, obviously you've had your amateur fights as a as a kid, so it's not your first time stepping into the ring, not the first time in front of front of an audience. But talk to me about the preparation, the emotions, and I guess i if it actually did feel different to the different to the amateur fights.

SPEAKER_00: 13:09

Yeah, well, it did feel very different first and foremost because it was still in lockdown and it was everyone was in like these these covid suits, and you couldn't have contact with anyone when you didn't have an audience. Did have an audience. You there was like it was black, it was pitch black, and there's just people in COVID suits. I think Eddie was still in there, Eddie Hearn and a couple of the operators, but no fans, nothing like that. And um it was very, very weird and eerie. You had to spend 24 hours in your room on your own in in lockdown, so you can get clear that you passed your COVID test, and uh it was just very strange, and I think that added to the nerves as well because it was an eeriness to it, but it it stood me in good stead, and every fight it's like anything, the more you do it, the more you get used to it. And I think in in a way, them two first fights I had were in lockdown, it was a good experience because there was no distractions, there was no crowds, it was just me doing my job with my trainer. And um I remember being really, really nervous on the f on the day of the fight, like oh everyone's been building me up. I had good managers who'd build me up, built me up, and everyone talking about how I sparred this guy, and I'd been getting shout outs from Tyson Fury, wishing me good luck and things like that. And I thought, what if I get in there and I just bomb and even if I I could still win, but look terrible. I don't want to look terrible, I want to get the knockout. And I I spoke to a boxer on a day a former boxer called Richard Towers, who's a big heavyweight. I think he f he'd won it or fought for a European title in his time, and he said, just enjoy it, Johnny. You dreamed about this moment, obviously, when you was a kid, and now you're here. What's the point of being nervous about it? Just go out there and enjoy it, and whatever is meant to be is meant to be. And that really did settle me down on the day of the fight, and I got out there running running the first round, and um the f my first reaction after the fight was just a sense of relief. It wasn't happiness, it was just yes, I've I've I've shown people not a lot, but I've shown them that I can punch a bit and I'm I'm here because I'll I'll be exciting to watch and uh I'm glad that I've got that first one on the way.

SPEAKER_02: 14:53

You talk about nerves, I mean let's also bring in the words scared as and I'm considering the two two different things. I mean I understand what you're saying about about about the nerves of letting people down, showing yourself up, etc. Do you ever get scared as in you know, I might get hurt here?

SPEAKER_00: 15:10

No, never.

SPEAKER_02: 15:11

That's just completely not in your brain.

SPEAKER_00: 15:13

Never in your brain. But there is a fear of not performing as you should and letting people down, as you said. That's that's the fear, but that fear is not a bad thing because it motivates you. You should wake up in the morning in your training camps when you're three weeks out, two weeks out, thinking why I've got to perform well, yeah, I've got to go and spar well because I've got two, three thousand people coming to watch me who've all paid their hard-earned money uh to come and watch me fight. So that fear can drive you. But in terms of getting hurt, I don't think any contact sport, if you ask any rugby player, I'm friends with a lot of the England rugby team and the Irish rugby team, and they wouldn't tell you they're they're fearful of going into them collisions, and I don't think any any boxer would tell you either, because if you are, you're in completely the wrong sport.

SPEAKER_02: 15:51

And is that also just because you've maybe done it so many times that like I don't know, a a Formula One driver's probably not scared about crashing because it's not it's not beyond the realms of possibility of happening, but he's driven that corner so much.

SPEAKER_00: 16:04

If you put me in a Formula One car, I'll probably be nervous beyond belief. But I think there is an instinctive thing where you're you don't have fear for things. So I've I've seen young kids box for the first time, and some of them, when they get hit, they're not deterred and they'll keep going, but others they flinch and they don't they don't like it. There is a truth to the fact that some people it's in them, some people it's not, but you find your calling and you find what you're good at in life. One kid who's not scared of who's scared of boxing might not be scared of getting in the Formula One car and driving around the track, you know, but everyone's got their own calling, and um boxing was definitely mine.

SPEAKER_02: 16:37

I mean you know when you see people at the weigh-ins probably a bit more of a spectacle on some of the MMA type things well, where you know, I'm gonna kill you, I'm gonna kill you. Do both people always really believe that they're the better than the other, or are you are you just you know are you just telling yourself it because you need to, or do you ever go to a fight thinking, you know, I'm confident, but he's not a bad lad, and all I need to do is put my foot one millimeter wrong, it doesn't matter how good I am, I could still fuck this up.

SPEAKER_00: 16:59

I think um every boxer sort of convinces himself that they're the best or they're going into a fight, especially if you want to win, you convince yourself that you're better than the other person, or you've at least got the the tools to be able to do damage and win. But um I think for sometimes when when people are are giving off that image or I'm gonna knock you out, I'm gonna do this, it's it's not a false sense of confidence, but it's just how they deal with with the fact they've got to go into fight. For me, I don't feel like I need to talk or talk like that. For me, my my my uh personality is listen, I'm gonna go in there and give it 110%. I don't have to go and shout and holler about it. It's gonna be a hard night's work for you because I'm not gonna give up. So I don't have to convince myself or try and convince the other person that I'm gonna I'm gonna be up be up for it because I know I'm already up for it and I can just flip that switch and get in that mode. But everyone deals with it in different ways. There's some boxes that are very quiet, there's some that are loud and brash, and that's how they deal with the pressure of it, you know.

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SPEAKER_02: 18:53

We've talked uh a little bit about uh about some of your some of your trainers and some of the people around you, but uh talk talk me talk me through your training regime or or your or your kind of general days and lifestyles, both in camp and out of camp.

SPEAKER_00: 19:05

Yeah, so I've I've recently got my own place, literally round a corner for mum and dad, so that's that's been great as well. Your own gym. My own house, and that's actually beneficial for my training as well, because my house is great, and we've got a lot of people. I've got I've got three siblings, I've got four dogs in that house, my my mum and dad, two cats. It's it's a bit of a mad house, it's a big family home, and it's great, and I always I always love it. But sometimes I've been in training camp and I've been like people walking up the stairs late at night, and them little them little 1% where you want to get your sleep right. Now I can I can do that. I've got my kitchens all done and little things like that. I'm a bit OCD, like I can I can have all my all my food prepared properly now and stuff, and uh my training regime on a day to day basis. I probably if you're in the depth of camp and you're six weeks out from the fight, you'll probably train twice a day from Monday to Friday. Monday morning or the morning sessions are boxing or strength and conditioning, and then the evenings will be a run or a swim or something like that, and you'll spar two or three times a week, and then Saturday will be a big run. Like a track day or a long distance run at Leon C, something like that. Track days are the worst days for me. I I they're they're tough and I I don't mind short distance running, but the middle or long distance, but the middle distant ones are ones that as a bigger man are quite tough for me, the 800 metres, and uh I've definitely got better at them and I like doing them because mentally I've got to go through the pain barrier a couple of times, but they're ones that really build you, and then Sunday get a nice day off. But it always fluctuates. Me and my trainer Mark and Sonny, my strength conditioner, we're very much that yeah, we have a plan, but we adapt as well. Some days you might have a really hard session. If I have a really hard spa on Wednesday, um I might not do the session on the Wednesday evening, I might have a full day off on the Thursday. Every now and then Mark will say, Right, John, you need a day off now. And sometimes that day's rest, I I I I say that to any of the any young boxers out there. Resting is just as important as as the hard training because that's where the adaptations take place, that's where your body gets stronger, that's where you replenish. What time do you go to bed? How long do you sleep for? I sleep for I try and get nine hours sleep because you need to that's that's the rest is more important than the training. If you're putting the work in, you can't just keep putting the work in and not get adequate sleep because that's where the body regenerates. I spoke to a a guy actually once, I was on the plane back from Hungary, I was in Budapest for my dad's 50th birthday, and um I I met a guy on there who actually turned out to be a Navy SEAL, and um he came and met me once um around Christmas time, came down to where I live, and he gave me a load of breathing exercises as well. And um, they've really helped me as well because I've I suffered from a bit of a blocked up nose from the sparring and my septums are a bit damaged. Little things like that, little one percents, two percents as you move through the levels, like you said about when you're sleeping in your room. If you've got a telly in your room, there's a little red dot, an infrared dot, just mask over that. He said about a grounding sheet, which is so when you go to you, as you said when we're speaking off camera, if you're using Vegas or Dubai, when you're adjusting to jet lag, just walk on the grass and that's grounding. But he's got a grounding sheet, and you plug it into the side of your bedroom of of your plug socket, and it connects you to the electric current that's coming through the ground, and that helps you recover. The Argentinian rugby team done it for years, and um little things like that, like the little gadgets, which I've I've not really been into before, but just learning off other people as I've gone through my boxing career. Little 1% and 2% they all add up. So breathing, quality sleep, having the correct food, having a routine that you can stick to, all them little things add up. How are you with your nutrition? Very good, very good. If you see me on Instagram and social media, you know I love a Chinese like my dad, Big John. But um, that's social media, you know. People don't see the hard graft that goes in week in, week out when you're preparing for a fight. I've got a great strength conditioning coach now called Sonny Cannon. Used to do the nutrition for Tottenham Hotspur, and um he uh is a chef himself, a trained chef, and he gives me great advice. There's little hacks that you can do, and it's always about trying to eat whole foods, you know, eating stuff that grows out of the ground or good quality meat. And there's there is the element of being a heavyweight, you have to make sure you get enough calories in. It's about time constraints as well, and there are times like if I've had a hard sparring session one day, I can burn 1500 calories in one session, and I've got to get calories straight back in. So it's about making sensible choices about how you get them calories in. And that might be you go and get a stone-baked pizza from over the road, not a Domino's pizza or a pizza hut, but he he often tells me about Tottenham Hotspur after after matches that have a pizza and a milkshake straight away just to get them calories back in. Because there are 1500 calories there, I've then got to get my calories, my maintenance calories just to make sure I don't lose weight for for the rest of the day, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 23:27

Oh so I was about to say what why do they need to get the calories back in? And that's that's so so they can maintain so they can keep your muscle.

SPEAKER_00: 23:33

Yeah, mate, keep your muscle. For me, as a boxer, you don't want to be eating into your into your into your body weight or your orange at what rate do you fight at? I fight at about 17 or 17 and a half stone, so about 110 kilos. And and what are you walking around at? I walk around. If I've just come back into camp like I am now, I've I don't really fluctuate too much. I put on about one or two kilos, really. But the composition of your body can change a little bit, so the muscle might go down a bit and the fat might go up a bit, and that's what you don't want.

SPEAKER_02: 23:59

Do you like saunas and ice baths?

SPEAKER_00: 24:01

Yes, I love a sauna. Uh saunas definitely, I think saunas are more beneficial than the ice baths. I think they can be a bit of a fad sometimes, these people jumping in ice baths. They've definitely got their place. I do cryotherapy changer chambers as well, a place called Be Superhuman, where I live. But um the sauna, I think, has there's so many studies done on saunas and how beneficial they are. The the benefit of the cold plunge where you actually jump in, it's a feel-good factor, and then the endorphins they can give you the same high as as cocaine. It's been it's been proven. So um I think that's beneficial for your feel-good factor. But the actual recovery and the the the studies done on recovery lend themselves more to to saunas.

SPEAKER_02: 24:38

When you're in the ring, I mean one thing I've always wondered, you know, you're out there fighting, let's say you're on the back foot, your opponent's got the better of you, yeah, and your corners, you know, um shouting, coaching tips you, whatever it may be, you know, jab him, keep your hand up, whatever. A, can you hear it? And and B, if you can, are you listening to it thinking, my coach you tell me the right thing? Are you thinking, fuck off, mate? I'm in here, get my head smashed in, yeah. It's a great question.

SPEAKER_00: 25:01

I'll do what I'll do with the best I can. It is a great question, and it's weird because I can always hear certain voices in my head when I'm when I'm boxing and people in the crowd. A lot of it's just muffled white noise, but you always hear your trainer because one, they're right next to you on the ring apron, and um as you go through your career from like fight one to where I am now, fight eleven, you get better on retaining the information. And my my attempt fight was very, very good for that because it went seven rounds. I was fighting a good kid who'd who'd had a lot of experience boxing for England. I won the Southern Area title against him, and that was great because it gave me them seven rounds to really communicate and learn with Mark Tibbs, who my trainer is. But then there's also other voices outside of that. My dad's I can always hear, and uh uh one of my dad's good friends, Jimmy. It's just randomly I can always hear his voice as well, and that might be because he's been I've grown up around him and he's got boxing experience himself, but there's just certain voices you hear, and I see people around the ring after the fight, and they're like literally as close as all them, but I never heard any of their voices. But it's always my dad and Jimmy for some reason, and he'll he'll watch this and um I hope he he takes uh uh respect for that because I say it in a respectful way. I respect his word and I respect him as a man, and uh he's experienced in boxing as well. And I can always hear him and my dad. You can hear him going bosh, yeah, but sometimes so bossing him. But then you get all the other people shouting out, and it's great that people want to support and you don't need to hear all them, but they're saying knock him out, jab, and as you said, fucking hell, that's what I'm trying to do anyway. So I don't need to hear that, I'm trying to do that at all times.

SPEAKER_02: 26:26

But from your coach and some of the things he's telling you, uh, I mean, do you do you actually realise when you're in there or you saying the right thing, you know? I don't know, I am dropping my hand, or I am I am going a bit, bit uh, you know, weak on him or not punching, not punching him when I should do.

SPEAKER_00: 26:41

Yeah, it's good, it's great to I've got a great connection with my coach, and when we're in the corner together, he's a he's an excellent cornerman, he's well-class mark. He's trained Billy Joe Saunders, he's trained Dillian White, he's boxed himself, he's had 23 professional fights, I believe. Boxer England, his dad's Jimmy Tibbs, uh a legend in the boxing game. When you're in a corner, it just simplifies everything. He doesn't try and dress it up, he tells you whereabouts you are in the fight, what you need to do better, and the the the the instructions are simple. And I think that's uh that's all you need in an environment where it's intense, you don't need to be everything dressed up, he'll tell you the truth and he'll tell you what you need to do better. And it does give you I always say to him before fight, listen, Mark, as long as I listen to you, I'm not gonna go too far wrong. I've just got to take your advice on board and execute it. So that's all you need in a in an environment like that.

SPEAKER_02: 27:22

You mentioned earlier uh about I think it was your trainer when you were talking about him being very good at simplifying things. I'm a big fan of simplification in general. You know, just uh before uh we were recording this, I had um a chef in earlier who he has a cookbook called Easy, and uh you know he he he talks about making dishes in an easy way. And I was explaining to him how as a total layman I sometimes want to cook something, and I see two recipes for the same thing. One's got 27 ingredients, one's got six, and you're still ultimately making the same thing. So I I picked that. And I think in life people love to overcomplicate things because it probably makes them feel better if they've done something overcomplicated. Take that and run with it for in boxing for me.

SPEAKER_00: 28:00

Well, it's not just in boxing, but in life, as you said, in general. Like, think about social media, think about TikTok and the success of that. 10-second videos, 15-second videos, they get the most interaction and the most views, especially in the modern world. People don't have time to sit there and divulge loads of information. People just want things instantly, and um, in boxing, that can be a good thing and a bad thing. It can be a good thing because, like for me, social media has been great, and for a lot of boxers, because it gives people instant uh access to your career, whereas 20, 30 years ago you probably have to have 10, 15, 20 fights before anyone takes any notice. But on the flip side of that, the uh the simplification and the instant nature of the modern world means that there's instant pressure on you as well. And for a lot of boxers, they've got to realise that dealing with that pressure that's a new challenge in itself. Whereas 20, 30 years ago, if you was Mike Tyson, probably people back in the day probably didn't know about him until his 10th, 15th fight. I know you probably get the hardcore boxing fans who knew about him, but until you got to that stage where it's on national television and things like that, people wouldn't know who he was. But for us now as boxers, um things that are just instantly on you straight away. If you're on Sky, Frank Warren, uh Matrum like I am, things are things are straight away. So that's a good thing and a bad thing, and that comes down to simplifying it, where people could just watch on Instagram straight away all at this knockout, boom. Whereas before you'd have to tune in on the telly, wait till seven o'clock or ten o'clock at night. If you miss it, you can't record it, you know. But for us, it's it's good and bad things to this simplification of stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 29:28

A tip for some amateur boxers out there: how do people overcomplicate things in boxing? You look at look at the old Rocky movies and uh and Rocky's uh and his training's always the most basic, the most training. Is it simple? He's on his own, he's just bashing out three or four or five simple key exercises, and yeah, what what what do people do to to overcomplicate things and trip themselves up?

SPEAKER_00: 29:48

Um one good thing about modern athleticism, modern sport is the how so uh how strength and conditioning's come into it and become a massive part of it. But I do see some instances where strength and conditioning can overtake from professional or from the sport that you're doing, you know. I I was a victim of that myself. I had a great um who's who's a friend of mine and was a great trainer, Ricky McFarlane. I used to train with him, but it was my fault. I was probably doing too much strength and conditioning and not enough boxing training. We spoke about that often, and uh I haven't spoken to Ricky in years, but he's just come into my head now. But we had a great relationship, a great bond, and I just love training with him. But we was probably going, and he recognised us as well, he said it to me. I was probably going too far into the strength and conditioning side of it, but not sticking to just doing your bag work, doing your running, doing your sparring. So for any young boxers out there, just go to your local boxing gym, just turn up, don't think too far ahead, just train three or four times a week after school. I remember my best years as an amateur. Well, I I had one proper season as an amateur when I was 14, 15 at Horn Church and Elm Park. All I did was run, hit the bag, and spar. And I was as fit as I'd ever been. And um don't overcomplicate things. Strength and conditioning has a time and a place when you become a uh professional athlete. But boxing is not a hard sport. Listen to your trainer, get a good trainer and and run, hit the bag and spar.

SPEAKER_02: 31:07

If I've ever not got uh time to do much of a workout in the gym, but I still want to do something. My my kind of personally may go to is always 20 squats, yeah. 20 press-ups, definitely repeated five times. I can do that in like 15 minutes, and I've hit I've hit pretty much everything I need to hit.

SPEAKER_00: 31:23

Exercises are a great thing. You don't even need a box, you don't even need to go to a gym. Do your press-ups, do your chin-ups, do your squats. Squats are a great exercise because they incorporate obviously your legs and your lower body, but it's your core as well. The core part of your body is when you say core, it doesn't mean your abs, it means your your stability that goes through your whole body. And something like doing squats and stretching as well, that's a massive thing. Something you're probably neglected when you're young, because I'm still young now, but when you're 17, 18, 19, you neglect them sort of things. But while I'm still relatively young now, I'm gonna keep uh indulging in that and keep on using that because that adds adds longevity to your career as well. And as you said, doing bodyweight exercises like that for 20, 30 minutes a day, that's gonna stand people in good stead, if they've got busy lives, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 32:06

And and in the heavyweight class, what's the uh the rate limits?

SPEAKER_00: 32:09

Yeah, the tolerance. So you can be um it's 200 pounds, I believe. So it's 91 kilos is the is the is the bottom end. So anything over that. So you could be 92 kilos and you could fight someone 120 kilos.

SPEAKER_02: 32:21

And what's super heavyweight? Is that even more?

SPEAKER_00: 32:23

That was in amateur boxing. So heavyweight is So heavyweight is super heavyweight in in professional boxing.

SPEAKER_02: 32:28

Okay, so so that was that was gonna then lead me into my next question. That that you know, when when you've got someone who's fucking two you know, 250, 250 pounds against someone who's two 200 pounds, or someone who's seven foot against someone who's six foot. I mean, how do you ever compete with that? Because it just seems it doesn't matter how talented you are, it just seems so mismatched.

SPEAKER_00: 32:47

It is a mis it is in in a way, but the good thing about being a heavyweight is you're always going to be at the full strength and your full capability. So if you're good enough, like think about Mike Tyson, he wasn't much over 200 pounds, but he was at the peak of his physical performance, he hadn't had to boil down weight, he's at what he's what what weight he's comfortable at, so he can go in and knock out these massive guys that you've seen him knock out and things like that. I think about the UFC low a lot, and they have a weight limit on the heavyweights. I think I think you can I think it's I don't know what the weight limit is, it might be 250 pounds, but I think that might be a quality thing. So people do come in and in shape because you know there is a danger when there's no limit that you've got these big lumps who can weigh 300 pounds and they're not conditioned, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 33:24

I mean I've seen I've seen some some of the uh like Tyson Fury fights, and you know, when you look at him, and it's just like you know, he's here, the guy's there, and you know, the guy can ever land a punch in him, he's he's just like literally walking him around the ring like a giant.

SPEAKER_00: 33:37

It's it's uh it is sometimes it can appear like a mismatch, but then I look at other fighters like Andy Veriz or Mike Tyson, who are Mike Tyson, five foot ten.

SPEAKER_02: 33:45

I was gonna say he's not tall, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 33:46

No, and he he was knocking out everyone he's he'd faced at one point, so it's uh that's why we watch heavyweight boxing as well, because of the variations and the the idea that anything can happen as well. Sometimes, like any sport, it can be boring, there can be bad fights, but other times it can be uh there can be devastating knockouts as well.

SPEAKER_02: 34:02

Well, let's talk through some of your fights. You've you've had eleven now, yeah. Ten knockouts. Ten knockouts. And I mean, any any particularly great memories, any standouts, any ones where you thought you're on the back foot?

SPEAKER_00: 34:13

There's two fights where I think I've learnt the most. There was my fifth fight where I was warming up on the pads, and I'd had a hand injury for uh for most of the camp, and it was actually uh niggling on me uh from the fight before as well. And this was my fight at Ali Pali where I sold a load of the tickets of about two and a half, three thousand tickets, and I was fighting a Spanish heavyweight champion, and I was warming up on the pads in the training room, and I felt a crunch go down my hand, and it turns out I knew something was wrong, but I was ten minutes from going out, and there's not much you can say to your trainers. You can't turn around and say, Oh, I've hurt my hand, can't go out there and fight, you've just got to get on with it. And for the first round, it was okay. And I caught it with a right hand, I think it was at the end of that round or the second round, and I felt the crunch go down again. And it turns out after the fight I had a broken metacarpal that had been splintering. Oh, it was just a bit weak anyway, and you it was weak anyway, but it was okay, I could get through it. But the way I crunched it in that fight, you said he showed me the crack how it had split already, but then that crack had obviously formed a new one, and it splintered down my hand. And I remember just coming through that fight thinking this is difficult. I got cut in the first minute as well of the round of the first round, and that was a great learning fight for me. And um everyone was expecting me to knock them out because my first four fights had knocked everyone out, and you've got this big crowd here, and it was a big occasion, and not deflated afterwards, but you're like, Oh, that was just a points victory. But then after the disappointment of not getting a knockout, the next day you realise hang on, I'm getting a lot of respect from people in the boxing world because I showed a little bit more to my game that I can hang around, and if the job isn't going the way I want it to, and things are going wrong, I can still pull out the win. So that was good for me. And the second fight that sticks out in my memory is the second from last one, my southern area title fight, because I didn't have a long extensive amateur background like a lot of other other boxers do, and a lot of people in the boxing community or people on you get people on the internet as well saying he won't even win a area title, he's not even area title level. So to get that bit of legitimacy and win that win that fight in the in in the seventh round on the Anthony Joshua undercard as well, um, that was great for me as well, and now I'm in a great position to keep moving forward.

SPEAKER_02: 36:08

Let's talk about money. Uh, you say your goal's been to provide provide for your family. When you first got into it, did you think that boxing would be able to make you provide financially, or were you still doing it for love and fun at this point?

SPEAKER_00: 36:19

I was doing it for love and fun, really and truly. I remember doing it all through university, just doing it on the side of my rugby, travelling backwards and forwards from Exeter. I'd come, I'd I'd play rugby on Wednesday, and I'd go and spa on Friday up the Repton in Bethnal Green, and I was doing it because I loved it. And as I said off camera, I think when you do something because you love it, you can end up making a career out of it, and the money will follow. When I turned pro, I was earning not much money at all. I was gonna say, can you remember what your first purse was? I forgot for my first purse, and that's rightly so. I had no back, no one knew what I was capable of, no one knew of the following, and that's a that's pretty good for a lot. There's a lot of boxers out there who don't earn nowhere near as much as that for their first purse, believe it or not. And they're actually some boxers who I'm very grateful because they have to pay the house, they have to pay for the opponent, uh, especially on a small hall circuit. So I was in a pretty- But why are they doing that?

SPEAKER_02: 37:08

Because they need the experience, they need the practice. Because they've got no other choice, and they want to make it. They've got no choice because no one will pay them, but they need the profile.

SPEAKER_00: 37:16

I was very lucky in a sense. So I had a SJM box in my management at the time, uh, who are still my managers now. They got uh in contact with Matram and Eddie Hearn, and um they they saw how many tickets are sold at amateur boxing club events in Exeter. I brought 500 people down to Exeter from Essex, and um they saw that I've had a few knockouts and I'm a heavyweight, and uh there was a chance there, and they saw the potential, and luckily they saw the potential, but there's a lot of boxers out there who are very good, but they don't get the recognition they deserve, or they don't have the following, and a lot of boxers struggle to see to understand that it's about the following, it's about the charisma and the appeal that you've got for people as well. And there's great boxers out there who fight on small hall shows and they they're not earning any money. So that£4,000 is is it's minuscule to what I'm earning now, but I'm very, very grateful for that as a as a as a first step. And coming from being a uni student where I had no money whatsoever, getting£4,000 paid to you felt like uh I was a millionaire, you know, when you first get it.

SPEAKER_02: 38:10

And what are the kind of economics and earning opportunities of boxing? Obviously, you we we know you get your purse, you can get a percentage of ticket sales, uh, and I won't talk about that a bit. You've got your sponsorships and things. I mean, who who do you go out working on your own sponsorship deals? Have you got a management team that does that?

SPEAKER_00: 38:25

Yeah, so there's so many different ways that boxers can earn can earn money in a sense. Um you can just be a ticket seller first and foremost, not get a purse. Some people on small hall shows just get a percentage of their tickets if they let they sell, and that's it. But yeah, you've got sponsorship deals that people might approach you for. I can personally get them myself if people approach me. Um, I've got a management team, they can look for you as well, and they've my management have been very good. They've got me a good deal with Everlast and Sports Direct, yeah, ticket sales, as I said, and then your fight purf. So they're the main avenues, and there's there's other things you can do, appearances at places, but that's where it sort of branches off of from boxing, and then it becomes more about you as a commercial person. And I don't like I've always tried to be myself, you know, and I think that's that's the the the key thing when you're trying to make it in that make the money in in that in that sense. It's not about trying to make money, just be yourself, and then you can make a living out of it, you know. And that's what I've always tried to try to instill, my dad's tried to instill in me and my family. Be yourself, be a genuine person, and then people might want to m tune in and resonate with you and get involved, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 39:27

And when you say be yourself, does that mean there's certain avenues that you go down you don't go down because even though you may get paid, it's just it just it's not your thing?

SPEAKER_00: 39:35

Yeah, there's there's certain things like that. Um it's it's more about the people that you want to get involved with as well. You want to be involved with people that are on the same page as you. Um, you get offered a lot of different things and different different with different companies, but you've got to choose people and work with people that you can connect with. Think I think about my sponsors, a lot of them are local companies. I've got pubs, I've got the Robin's Pie Mash shop, I've got recruitment companies for people that I know from my local area. And a lot of them don't want a lot out of me, they just want to be part of the journey, and they're the best people to have on your team because they're invested and they want to just come to the fights, they want to support, and um, that's great, it's great to have the bigger names as well because that's the end goal, isn't it? You want to you want to earn earn a living out of boxing, but it's brilliant to have a local community of people that we meet up two or three times a year as a big group, and that often means a lot more to me in a sense because you've got a proper team there, not just people in it for a business relationship, it's people that want to build with you, and I think that's a a good thing about boxing where you can build that personal connection.

SPEAKER_02: 40:34

Well, you talk about team. How how do the team get paid? Like you talk about your trainers and your nutrition coaches and stuff. Are these people that effectively are on your payroll in some way that you've got to pay this person, whether it's a pound here or a percentage of a purse or how does all that work?

SPEAKER_00: 40:48

So that's the difficulty with boxing, right? So you could uh you could train for a fight, and sometimes it happens, uh, quite often, fights don't come off, and then you can you've got to front up all the costs for your training camp, for the sparring partners, for the physio sessions, for the strength and conditioning sessions, and then your trainer normally has a cut that takes a cut of your of your fight purse, and your manager takes a cut of your fight purse. In some instances, when you get to big, big fights, there might be uh instances where the promoter takes a cut or they're built they're built into it. But if you don't fight, you don't get paid. For instance, in my last fight, um I was sparring in Vegas, I think it was the first or second week of sparring, and I got a cut on my nose. I was sparring Michael Hunter, who's fought some of the top names out there Pavetkin, Huey Fury, and uh Martin Bacoli, he beat, and he's he's quite an avoided heavyweight, very awkward guy. And the last round of a spa cut my nose across my face, and I was really worried because I was thinking all these people paid their hard earned money for one to come out to watch me and they've paid thousands of pounds to watch, but also from a livelihood point of view, I'm not gonna get paid if I if I don't get through this fight, so I had to get it stitched up. I couldn't tell anyone, and uh I got it done. I was okay in the end, but it is a stress, and a lot of boxers experience that. If they don't fight, they don't get paid.

SPEAKER_02: 41:57

If the fight doesn't happen for you, the people you've sold tickets to, they they still have to pay for the tickets.

SPEAKER_00: 42:03

They've paid for all their flights, their hotels, they'll get a refund on the tickets, but the the Oh, they do, don't they? Uh no, actually, I don't no, I don't think so because I'm not a headline event, right? If I was uh the headline of the show, they might postpone the show and move it on. But I was just uh I'm either chief supporter or I'm second or third up from the bill. And um the problem with where I was in this one, Las Vegas, people have paid for their flights, people paid for their hotels, thousands of pounds, and they've they've had to arrange all of that, and that was weighing on my mind, so I was very, very grateful when the doctors over there stitched me up and got me ready to go.

SPEAKER_02: 42:33

You'd have had to have a scrap in the car park to keep a mapping, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_00: 42:36

That's it, we would have had to find it. Me and Big John could have had a scrap in the car park.

SPEAKER_02: 42:40

Um what do you do with your money?

SPEAKER_00: 42:42

Uh how do you invest? I put it in a house. It's all in my house, and uh it's good to I don't I'm not I'm not a extravagant spender, if I'm being honest. Um I'm not flashy with with my money. Yes, we like to go on holiday. I I take my mum and dad away after a couple of after my fights a couple of times, go down to Cornwall. I love going down to Cornwall. Go away. My brother's been to Mexico a couple of times, and yeah, um I don't spend in an extravagant manner, you know. I know some people do, and I probably will, I probably will do at some points, like I do I said on my holidays and stuff, but other than that, I'm trying to invest my money and I'm trying to I'm trying to build it up rather than just uh waste it. But you have to enjoy yourself at the same time as well. And my dad has to remind me sometimes of that.

SPEAKER_02: 43:22

Have you ever had a serious girlfriend during uh kind of trading time, boxing time?

SPEAKER_00: 43:27

Not really, if I'm being honest. I've I've I've I've dated girls for months at the time, but I think um I just think where I am at my in my career in my career, it does come down to the fact that that always has to come first at the minute, and I have to find a uh a woman who's gonna be receptive of that, you know. And um it's quite hard, especially in the modern world. People have got their own jobs now. It's not like when our parents met, my parents met like 30 30 years ago or whatever, where it was more traditional, like the man had a job, the woman probably didn't have a job, and then they they built together and the housewife and the man went out to work. Now women earn as just as much as men, and they do their thing, and the men do their thing, and right or wrong, it's just it's a different world we live in now, and I think it's hard for for people to understand that I've got to put that first, and I don't know. I I I'm I'm still quite a traditional person in a sense. Um I like the idea of having a lady who does her own thing and has her own job, but eventually I think it would be with my career, they'd have to come round and and support my career in in some sort of way and get involved and work in that sense. But it's finding someone who wants to do that, and to be able to do that, a lady's really got to be uh be ready to sacrifice, hasn't she?

SPEAKER_02: 44:36

Well, I think whatever support means, you know, whether that means giving you the space to do your own thing or whether it means holding your hand throughout the journey and doing your washing for you, you know, whether it's not.

SPEAKER_00: 44:45

And my mum would probably man at me for doing that. If anyone else done my washing apart from my mum, I think she'd get very, very angry, so she could keep doing that.

SPEAKER_02: 44:52

But yeah, I think you know, whatever that support means, uh, you know, whether it's sport, whether it's business, I think, you know, if if you want to be at the top of your game in anything, if you want real success, you know, you you you have to have either a supportive person or no person, otherwise it's just a total fucking disruption.

SPEAKER_00: 45:06

It is, it's a distraction, and uh I wouldn't want to it wouldn't be fair on either person that way, but it's something I've had to you have to sort of come to terms with. Like you're not it's not right for me right now to uh unless the right person comes along, but in a minute I've got to be fully focused on that, and if it distracts me from that, then it's it's not gonna work. I remember once uh a couple of years ago, I was just I had a training one morning and the late the girl wanted me to stay stay around there, but I just couldn't do it. Like it to them it wouldn't seem like a big deal that oh why why is he not why is he not staying? What's the problem? But uh that would mean I have to get to training two hours later, I've got to foot I've got to sort my bag out for the morning. It sounds obsessive, but I need to be at home, but I need to have everything ready to go for the morning, you know. But obsession is the difference between being good and being great, exactly, or being someone who wouldn't have m wouldn't have got to where they are now, and that's not even about being good or great. I think it's just about being in a position I am. If I wasn't like that, I'm not saying I'm great now, but I wouldn't be in a position I am to have the potential to go further. So being obsessed over them little things, as you said, that makes all the difference.

SPEAKER_02: 46:11

How do you uh react to let's say social media hate and that kind of thing, insofar as uh do you does it does it fuel you on um or do you just ignore it?

SPEAKER_00: 46:22

I don't really get any feeling from it, if I'm being honest. Um I'm just grateful that I'm in a position where I can box for my living and and do this as a job. And um if you're gonna go through you're gonna go through professional sport where people watch you on tell, people are gonna have opinions that they're not gonna like you or they are gonna like you. Luckily for me, I've got a lot of uh supporters who who are very genuine and and people who who see it see it for what I am and they're honest because I'm always trying to be honest about my career, and I never blow myself up or say that I'm better than what I am. I've just I've got an opportunity here and I want to try and go as far as I can. And there'll always be people who who are trying to put you down, but that's that's that's the nature of life. It doesn't, it's not just for a professional sportsman, but any aspect of life, you've got people wishing that you're gonna get beat, so it does in a way fuel me because I sometimes before a fight I want to be like, yeah, I want to prove them people wrong and I I want to win. But multi ultimately it's for myself and for my family. I'll do it, I'll fight because I want to give them a better life.

SPEAKER_02: 47:16

Are all the big earners big followed people? Or obviously I don't know anything enough about the sport to be able to be able to think of an example person, but I mean, do you get any, let's say, champions who are they're a champion because they've they've won the championship, but no one really gives a shit about them and they're not particularly followed?

SPEAKER_00: 47:33

Well, you've got to all have a commercial value, right? To be good in to be big in boxing or to get people to tune in to watch. You can get that through just being unbelievably good and being unbelievable. Think about someone like Canelo Alvarez, who's uh who's been at the top of the middleweight division for some years. Whether you think he's the best now or not is another question, but he's extremely good. And um he's got on because he's fantastic at his that at his sport. But then other boxers, it's because they can they're they're they've you first of all you've got to be amazing to get to the top of the sport, you've got to be a great boxer, but the more value you get, and you can increase that value by being able to resonate with people, having a following, having people interested in your life. So yes, boxing number one comes first, being a good boxer, but then you've got to have the other facets to your bow to become more of a commercial commercially viable for people and want to people to come and tune in and watch. They want to tune into personalities. People come to boxing events or people go to shows in general, go to UFC events because they want to be entertained. Think about the guys that that give people what they want. That's that's what they want. Whether that's being a trash talker, whether that's being someone people can connect with. You've got to give something to people to come and tune in and be invested in. And I think boxing and combat sports are different to team sports in a way, because you're supporting a person, you're not supporting a team. Like you're not if you support a Liverpool Football Club, who are you truly supporting? You're not supporting an individual player. You might like an individual player, but when you're supporting someone because they're a fighter, you're invested in that. It's emotional, it's an emotional connection, and that's why I think uh boxing and combat sports can resonate a lot more with people in general than football clubs do or footballers, you know, or or any any sport like that, rugby players. And I think that's the something special about combat sports.

SPEAKER_02: 49:14

Just before we start recording, we were just talking about the um the Jake Paul uh Mike Tyson fights. Yeah. I mean, what's your there's a there's a lot of these crossover fights now, and uh you whilst some people will say, well, it's it's not professional boxing, I mean you know that these guys are are still still training hard and and put and putting themselves in you know uncomfortable positions. I mean, what what what's your thoughts on that stuff?

SPEAKER_00: 49:33

My thoughts is you separate the the YouTuber entertainment side of it, and that's entertainment, and then you've got conventional boxing. It doesn't mean that professional boxers can't learn from the way that these guys market themselves and put themselves out there and show their personalities. And fair play to them. They're they're training, as I said, as we said off camera, they're training as hard as anyone. You see KSI training, Jake Paul training, Mike Tyson training nearly 60 years old. Fair play to them, and they're earning great money. And um, yes, sometimes I look at some of the other guys on the undercard and I cringe and I I'm not a fan of it, but who am I to knock someone trying to earn a bit of money? If they're trying to earn money, fair play to them.

SPEAKER_02: 50:10

I guess the takeaway, because you know, so we can look at any situation and learn from it rather than hate on it, is you know, the uh uh yes, someone may be the better boxer, but these guys have the better brand and and it it shows the importance of skill is one thing, but ultimately brand and distribution is everything.

SPEAKER_00: 50:26

And I don't like talking about it in in a in a business sense like that, but it is true, like they're just being that they know how to work the crowd, you know. From my perspective, I'm not trying to I'm not trying to manipulate or work the crowd, I'm just trying to be my authentic self. And I think if a lot more boxers put their personality out there a little bit more, people will be a little bit more interested, you know. And these guys definitely know how to how to put on a show and um we can learn something from it. And as you said, too many people in the world try and hate on other people, especially in the world of social media. If there's people over there making money and they're they're feeding their families and and making a better life for themselves, who am I who am I to judge? And what's your thoughts on the on the current state of the heavyweight division? It's great at the minute, I think. It's it's wide open. We saw um we I'm looking very much so forward to to Fury Usick, seeing who's the king of the hill. Um Joshua's made a resurgence, which is always great for for British boxing, because I remember when he first came on the scene now, he galvanised a lot of the of the general public and the casual fans as well. So when Joshua's doing well, it's good for the whole of British boxing and and world boxing. But I think that fight that we want to see now, we wanted to see it a couple of years ago, but now it's even hotter. Fury versus Joshua, and I hope we can see that after Fury's Fury's got to fight Utik twice now because he's in contract to fight him twice. So we might not see it for another year or so. But before they both retire, I'd love to see Tyson Fury versus Anthony Joshua.

SPEAKER_02: 51:44

When they have to fight someone twice, I uh I how does that work? Is it is it for the same is it for the same belt each time?

SPEAKER_00: 51:50

It's just so when they fight in these big fights for world titles, it's there's often contracts that are put in place before. So one they'll have a rematch clause. So if one loses, they can come back and and rematch. Like when Joshua fought Usick twice, there was a rematch clause in that for both fighters, or it might have just been for Joshua. If he loses the belts, he's got a chance to win them back, you know. So that's quite a mountain to climb in itself. You know, if you beat someone, you've got to beat them again. But um, yeah, that's why they do it for financial security, and they both know that they're gonna get two paydays rather than one as well.

SPEAKER_02: 52:20

Francis Ngarnu uh and and Joshua fight recently, I mean uh March the 8th, so uh what were we on uh a couple of weeks ago from when we're recording this now, uh ended in a decisive victory for uh Joshua. What's um what's your thoughts on the fight?

SPEAKER_00: 52:32

Yeah, it was it's what is to be expected really. Um if a UFC champion comes into boxing, that's what a lot of the boxing public expected to happen. But it didn't happen a few months ago when Fury fought uh Nganu. A lot of people were picking Nganu to be beat in one or two rounds, and he actually only lost narrowly on points to Nganu, a lot of people uh to Fury, and a lot of people thought Nganu won. I personally thought Fury won by a couple of rounds, but he didn't have the best performance. So what that has done for the heavyweight division is galvanised a bit of interest in Fury versus Joshua again now because that contrast between the two the two performances shows that the gap might have narrowed between Fury and Joshua. I'm very I'm interested no matter what to see that them two fight.

SPEAKER_02: 53:10

You said you reckoned you could take him out in in one round.

SPEAKER_00: 53:13

I reckon I've got a good chance against Ngannu, yeah. I've got the power to stop him 100%. How do you get a fight like that? You've got to build up your profile, you've got to get a lot more fights under your belt, and you've got to have uh I'm not in a position really where and I'm I wasn't saying that in a way to call him out because I'm respectful of the position I'm in. I've not achieved what Nganu's achieved in the UFC realm. I've I'm respectful of his journey, but someone just asked me, and I'll I'm always honest, I think I've got a good chance against Nganu. And uh I think the way that Joshua dealt with him shows that he's not a boxer. If I went into the UFC cage, it'd be a different story, but he's not a boxer, and I am, and I can punch as hard as most people out there, and if I land on his chin, he'll probably go down as well. Just as like if Ngannu landed on my chin, there's a good chance he goes down. But um yeah, I'll always be honest and I'll I'll always back myself.

SPEAKER_02: 53:58

In the career like boxing, how long do you expect it to go on for? You know, I mean, are you are you very much at the beginning of your career?

SPEAKER_00: 54:05

I'm I'm coming out of that that embryonic, that beginning stage, that that baby stage, you know, now I'm 25, so in heavyweight terms, you still probably are a baby. Think about the guys now, they're mid-30s and they're at the peak of their career. So I've still got ten years in this game till I get to my peak if it works out like that. But do you want to be boxing that long? I don't know. I'll have to see again in five years' time, you know, when I'm 30. But I'm at that stage now where I can start building up towards some some bigger titles.

SPEAKER_02: 54:34

What is it about boxing that I guess means that you kind of are getting better with age, if you like, up until say 30, 30 plus, because if you take 30 plus in another sport like a football or something, I mean you're completely finished.

SPEAKER_00: 54:45

Or even in different weight classes. So if you're lightweight or a featherweight, 30 is pretty old, you know. I think it's just the heavyweight game is slightly different to the rest of it. It's a bit slower. Um just the rhythm of it is slightly different. And I think about heavy heavyweights, it's more to do with strength and your your strength, you you reach peak strength a bit later in life, you know. And I just think where it's a little bit slower than than featherweights and lightweights, you've got a little bit more time. I think about George Foreman who who came back after winning the world title, he came back and won it again when he was mid-40s, so it can be done. And um, yeah, it's just slightly different rules for heavyweight boxing, and it seems throughout history, heavyweights who are 30 to 35, that's when they've reached their peak.

SPEAKER_02: 55:27

Any uh particular opponents you're uh you're looking forward to fighting in the future, you know, what uh I mean what's the game plan um going forward?

SPEAKER_00: 55:35

I've never been one to be in that position to feel like I've got to fight this person to get on. I think I'm in a privileged position where I've got support, I'm an exciting fighter to watch. Whoever I'll fight, there's plenty of names out there, they're gonna be exciting fights to watch, you know. It's more for me about chasing titles and chasing the ability to the idea of having accolades, and if I can finish my career being a British champion, a lot of boxers want to go further than that, but I'm quite realistic and I look at one goal at a time and being an English champion, then being a British champion, I think that would be unbelievable. I think about the guys who've held them belts before Lennox Lewis, uh Anthony Joshua, Henry Cooper, some great fighters all through the ages, and to be among them names would be something I could never have dreamed of when I was at university, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 56:19

Do you have a kind of an end game financial goal, whether that's X amount of money or what you and therefore when you've done so many fights you'll walk away, or is it, you know, how how how do you set your goals for yourself?

SPEAKER_00: 56:30

I think it's more of a the I the idea of financial freedom is the thing. It's not about being rich and having millions and millions of pounds, but it's about saying, alright, having that freedom where you can go, I'm gonna go away for a couple of weeks now and I'm not gonna have to worry about it. Or it's for about I think when you think about it, it's about what you can do for your family as well. And my mum and dad, my mum, she works for me now, but she used to work as a teaching assistant in a school and a dinner lady. Now she does like part-time work for me. Probably she probably says it's a bit more than part-time. She does all my washing, does all that stuff, does all my t-shirts and merchandise and does all the orders for them. But eventually, I think the end goal is to be able to say to your mum and dad, right, you don't have to work anymore. Here's a little house or here's a bit of money, and we can relax. And I think it's that freedom that you not only give to yourself, but you want to give to the immediate people around you, and then you can enjoy life a little bit. And it's got better in the last couple of years, especially after COVID. But to achieve that level of freedom, you need to earn a little bit more, you know. It's it's it's quite hard to do that. You think you've you've got there and then you haven't, you've just got to keep going and keep going. Have you got a missus? No, and that might be a good reason because they can uh they can drain you with a bit of your money. Um my brother's got a girlfriend recently, uh she lives in Scotland. Uh he met her in Magaluth at kebab shop, and uh she's a really nice girl, and they're they're he's younger than me, but he's up there every other week, you know, and he's he's he's draining his resources pretty fast.

SPEAKER_02: 57:50

Well, listen, it has been an absolute pleasure to talk to you, buddy. Thanks, man. Uh I think uh you know, and for someone who's who's who's 25, there's been so many, you've got so many stories, so many uh you know, different facets to your journey and your and your career, uh, and and I guess so much wisdom to give off. So, like I said, it's it's been a real pleasure. I appreciate it, thank you. I definitely want to come and see you in a fight sometime. Definitely. Maybe a Vegas one. Come along, definitely. We should be fighting in Vegas again soon, that'd be great. Oh, we'll uh we'll talk, we'll keep in touch about that. But just just before you go, just kind of one piece of standout advice for amateur boxers out there, you know, budding sports people. What's uh what's the one thing they should know?

SPEAKER_00: 58:24

For for budding sports people out there, whatever sport that is, um just enjoy yourself. If you enjoy what you do, then that's all that matters. Everything else will follow up uh follow after that. And it's not just about sport, it's about whatever you do. If you do what something that you're passionate about and you have fun doing it, then the energy that you give off that will make you successful anyway. So just keep following what you what you what you dream of doing. Perfect. Thanks a lot, thank you. Appreciate it, thank you.