HAPPY AS I'VE EVER BEEN - Billy Joe Saunders

Fighter Diary by Billy Joe Saunders

In the next installment of our exclusive diary columns by the fighters, world champion Billy Joe Saunders provides a progress report on his new regime ahead of his defence against Willie Monroe jr at the Copper Box on September 16

FIGHTERS ALWAYS TEND to claim ahead of fights that they have enjoyed their best ever camp and are in the best ever shape. I won’t be any different when I face the media ahead of my WBO world middleweight title defence against Willie Monroe and it will most likely be an accurate statement.

At this stage in the game, what I can say for a fact is that it is the happiest I have been in myself during fight preparations.

I am very happy with the work I am getting through with Dominic Ingle and probably the difference for me is the nutrition side of things.

It seems like I have someone practically living with me monitoring my every move towards the fridge! His name is Greg Marriott and, while I am exaggerating saying he virtually lives with me, he is there three or four times a day.

That is a big, big help for me.

Then I have also got the Ingle way of doing things, their style, thrown into the mix, which I am picking up superbly.

It is not really about changing anything in particular, just adding a few bits.

I am really in a good place at the moment where I am enjoying it.

I would say my attitude towards boxing as a whole is on a different level since I have been in the Ingle camp.

There were times before when I got down about things because the big fights opponents said they were up for didn’t happen, but the way I look at it now is that if they are going to come, they will come.

I am now not prepared to stall myself anymore and rely on them. I am here now to literally take over – hopefully – and while people may scoff and say I am talking rubbish, I have been sparring good level fighters who have got a name in the game and I am handling them with ease, like I should be again.

You have got to be happy in what you are doing and at the minute I am very, very happy in what I am doing. Dom has got me in fantastic shape since I have been with him and I am in the right place.

With the Ingle style, I am not saying he has taken everything away from me and rebuilt me into a different fighter, not at all. He hasn’t broken me down and changed me into a new person, he has just added to me and the nutrition side has been a big, big factor in it.

At this stage before previous fights I was not normally in the condition to post topless selfies of myself on social media, but this time around I am in good shape and it is like I have realised that I am a world champion.

I am not just a man who wants to fight once a year, which I had been doing, because I was waiting for the big fights.

Waiting around for people and being let down has cost me everything, but mostly it has cost me time, time where I could’ve been fighting regularly.

I won’t be fobbed off anymore and they will come when they are going to come. People always ask if I am looking at Golovkin or Canelo, but my attitude now is sod them – I will just prove what I am by beating other people if they don’t come to the table.

I am now doing different stuff that I think is going to benefit me and, so far, it has been working.

Look out for Billy Joe’s second diary entry next week