CHAD "Hollywood" Bennett hopes a traditional pre-fight pasta meal with Jeff Fenech last night will be the secret ingredient for success in his International Boxing Organisation Asia-Pacific junior welterweight title bout against Central Coast southpaw Steve Wills in Sydney tonight.
Newcastle's 36-year-old former World Boxing Foundation welterweight champion will take on unbeaten Wills, 11 years his junior, in the main preliminary to the IBO cruiserweight title fight between Danny Green and Roy Jones jnr at Acer Arena.
Bennett (63.1 kilograms) had no problem making the 63.5kg limit at the weigh-in at Star City yesterday afternoon then headed to the triple world champion's Five Dock home.
"Jeff said it never failed him, a big feed of spaghetti, and he reckons it will work a treat for Chad to get the carbs into him the night before the fight," Bennett's manager Richard Claut said.
There were only a handful of tickets still available last night for the 18,000-seat stadium and Bennett said it felt "surreal" thinking about taking centre stage for the last fight before Green and Jones touch gloves and start swinging.
"Walking out into the ring will be an experience I'll take to my deathbed. That's when you reflect on things that happen in your life, and this will definitely be one of them," Bennett said.
Bennett said he and Wills, the World Boxing Organisation Asia-Pacific junior welterweight champion, crossed paths in the Star City foyer before the weigh-in.
"This fight's not going to be a pretty fight to watch," said Bennett, who won a unanimous points decision against former IBO world lightweight champion Aldo Rios 11 days ago.
"Southpaw versus orthodox usually ends up a messy sort of fight, but my plan is to start boxing him from the outside, try to use my foot speed and hand speed against him and try not to bump heads. We've both got a history of bumping heads with different opponents so we're going to try to avoid that."
Irrespective of the result, Bennett will head to the US next week with Fenech and Claut to attend the World's Greatest Ever Boxer program in Las Vegas and to be introduced to influential figures such as Freddie Roach, trainer of seven-time world champion Manny Pacquiao.
"Richard coming back on board with me [after a split three years ago] is helping me take my career to new levels. This fight wouldn't have got over the line without him . . . He brings total professionalism to the table," Bennett said.
Source: theherald.com.au
Custom Search
No comments:
Post a Comment