‘My next fight should be the big one’

The WBA international light-heavyweight champion faces Latvian Ricards Bolotniks in Essex tomorrow night

You’ve been in California. How has it been training with Virgil Hunter?

It’s been busy, which is what I wanted and I’m not shying away from it. I feel blessed to have these opportunities.

Did you always want to move to train in the US?

I go wherever I can go to improve as a fighter. If he lived in Brazil, I’d be going to Brazil. If he was in Croydon, perfect! The Americans just do things differently but I do enjoy it. It’s a bit fresh for me.

He trained Andre Ward and Amir Khan. What have you learnt about Hunter?

He’s a clever coach, a smart coach, and you can’t work him out until you meet him. This decision was made with the intent of being a long-term thing.

You’re going to be fighting in front of fans for the first time since 2019.

Yeah, I can’t wait. It’s been a very long time for me. It’s more the anticipation before the fight for me, knowing people are out there waiting to watch you.

Will victory here set you up for a shot at

WBA super champion Dmitry Bivol?

Coming out of this with flying colours will make my next fight very interesting. The obvious writing on the wall is that the next fight should be ‘the one’.

Your old sparring partner Ben Whittaker wants to be mayor of Wolverhampton after his Olympic silver.

I’ll be voting for him to be mayor of Wolverhampton! He’s a cool guy, you have to have fun with what you do and he does that. He lost to the Cuban but this is what the Cubans do. He lost to someone very good.

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