Curtis Woodhouse is fired up for what he believes could be the ‘fight of the year’ with Dale Miles.
The former footballer, now at light-welterweight, 32, meets with Alfreton’s Miles, 27, in a British title eliminator on June 8th at Rotherham’s Magna Centre and fireworks are expected.
Both fighters have earned themselves reputations as big hitters. Whilst Woodhouse has ended all of his last six wins early, Miles has stopped nine out of his twelve opponents inside the distance too.
Woodhouse doesn’t believe that either of them have the best defences and he is preparing for a war of attrition that could end explosively.
He said: “Neither of us is going to outbox the other because we’re not capable of doing that. Dale can really whack and if he hits me flush it could be lights out. But the same goes for me.
“It’s going to be a great fight to watch because we’re both going to be going hell for leather. It’s probably going to come down to who’s got the better chin but I want to win so badly.
People laughed when I said that I wanted to be British champion five years ago and now I’m only one fight away from a crack at it.”
Woodhouse still sees Miles as a dangerous unbeaten fighter despite his cuts loss to Tyrone Nurse in Prizefighter earlier this year.
“You can’t read too much into that defeat because I think he was on the way to stopping Tyrone,” said Woodhouse. “Dale can flat-out fight and he’s like me in that regard. I can’t wait to get in the ring now.”
The winner of Woodhouse and Miles will take on the winner of Ashley Theophane and Steve Williams, who fight next weekend in Liverpool.
A packed undercard has been arranged for ‘Real Steel’ with another former footballer in Nathan Graham, travelling north to face unbeaten Rotherham fighter Navid Mansouri at light-middleweight.
Mansouri has been tuning up for the fight with sparring the now world champion – Paulie Malignaggi in Milan.
Former ABA champions Hosea Burton from Manchester and Jason Cunningham from Doncaster will feature. As well as Sheffield’s unbeaten Joe Rodgers and Barnsley’s newly-crowned British Masters champion Matthew Mallin, unbeaten Doncaster light-heavyweight Daniel Slaney and Rotherham cruiserweight Karl Bell.