ONE MORE WIN AND IT’S MINE FOR KEEPS

Fighter Diary by Tyrone Nurse

Victory over Jack Catterall at the Leeds Arena on October 21 would see Tyrone Nurse give a permanent home to his Lonsdale belt, an opportunity that has been a long time in the making, as the British champion explains in our latest exclusive Fighter Diary column…

AT LONG LAST, after a few false starts, I am finally getting the mandatory defence of my British super lightweight title that will give me ownership of the Lonsdale belt.

It has been a long time coming for me and we’ve had to deal with a couple of withdrawals from the mandatory position, so it is good to get at last with Jack Catterall coming back to the table after pulling out last time he was in position.

This is an exciting fight for me and the first time I have been excited for a fight for a while. The last time I was excited for one was against Chris Jenkins (MD, July 2015), the first one, so you are talking over two years ago, which is why I am really looking forward to this one.

Jack is a good fighter, 18-0 and 10 knockouts now, a solid puncher and a southpaw to make it a bit trickier.

He made people sit up and take notice again by looking good last time out against Martin Gethin with a third round stoppage, but I’m not sure how much Gethin really had left, to be honest.

He did what he had to do, got in there and did the job, doing it in good fashion. You can’t take nowt away from him because he did what was asked of him.

Before the Gethin fight Jack was taken the distance in his previous three and some commentators said he was looking a bit flat.

The truth is you can get bored fighting kids you are expected to beat and it has been the same for me. I’ve not been interested since the Jenkins fight. You’ve got to fight to make money, provide for your family and get by in life, so he might have reached a plateau with his performances stagnating a bit, the same as mine have recently.

Both of us now know we are in for a tough night at the Leeds Arena and each of us are fighting our best opponents. It will bring out the best in us both, I would imagine.

I rate Jack and I’ve taken note of him since I saw him take out Carl Allen. It was some result and the only other fighter I’d seen do that was Chad Gaynor at the time. I trained with Chad – he was one of my dad’s fighters then – and it was no easy feat, so I took note.

Going back to when Jack started, I was doing 12 round spars with Argenis Mendez in his gym. Jack was there at the side filming it for Lee Beard, so I have known him for years and seen him spar with other kids.

He is definitely a good fighter and this is a fight that has got me fired up again after coming close to pushing the British title to one side, with having taken so long to fulfil the criteria for keeping it.

There were a few times when I thought ‘what is the f**king point’ because I knew I could come back to it as I’m only 27 now.

Whether I won or lost at European or a higher level there would have been nothing stopping us coming back after a couple of fights.

It was something that was seriously considered but, at the same time, when you look at the belt you think to yourself ‘is it worth it?’. Chucking it away for the sake of other people messing you about.

Bradley Skeete said he would win it outright then he would move on and I guess it is the same for me now really.

The thought of having that belt for keeps is a big motivation, for your family and for yourself.

Read Tyrone’s second diary entry next week