British Boxing Hopeful Akaash Bhatia Wins Respect Of Seasoned Journeyman Rocky Dean

By Ben Lettman

Unbeaten featherweight Akaash Bhatia has been sparring with seasoned veteran Rocky Dean as preparation for his four round fight on the David Haye vs. Tomasz Bonin card on April 27. The fight itself, against a yet to be named opponent, will take place in Bhatia’s hometown of Wembley. This will be Bhatia’s last four rounder before moving up to six rounds.

Dean has fought established fighters such as Andy Morris, Isaac Ward and Michael Hunter and once he had completed six rounds of rigorous sparring against Bhatia he said: “He’s as good as any of them. His punching power and timing are second to none. He’s a devastating puncher. He’s the best puncher out of all of them.”

Bhatia’s trainer Babatunde Ajayi believes out of the current crop of young featherweights, his man is the best, “Akaash, Paul Appleby, Paul Truscott, along with Martin Lindsay are definitely the top four young featherweight boxers in Britain”, said Ajayi. “But I believe I have the best one in Akaash Bhatia.”

Bhatia is unbeaten in five fights and had an excellent amateur career. He was an ABA finalist and knocked out Kevin Mitchell’s younger brother Vinny in the semi finals of the same tournament.

As well as sparring against Rocky Dean, Bhatia’s training regime included hitting a tire with a 14 pound sledgehammer for ten minutes and jumping over a bag bar for different periods of time – a training method that world champion Ricky Hatton is famous for using.

Bhatia also recently befriended fellow Asian boxer Amir Khan whilst visiting the same gym as him. Earlier this year Bhatia won the award for the “Most Up and Coming sports Personality Of The Year’ at the Sony Entertainment Television Asian Awards Sports Personality Of The Year Awards.
Coincidently, Amir Khan won the same award the previous year: “They are supporting each other”, said Ajayi, “It’s good for boxing in general but especially for young Asian kids because they are paving the way for the future generation of Asian fighters.”

According to Ajayi, Bhatia has become something of a wanted man: “He’s become so popular that I put posters in my local dry cleaners to promote his next fight and the owner told me that the posters were stolen by female fans!”

As for the experienced Rocky Dean, he was in training for his rematch against another unbeaten featherweight, Matthew Marsh, who he fights on May 26 on the Matt Skelton v Michael Sprott card.

In their first encounter Marsh was victorious via a close unanimous decision. This time the fight will be at super bantamweight. Dean went on to explain his tactics for their rematch: “I am going to just start a little bit quicker and make him work for every round. Last time I was a little bit one paced. This time I’ll grind him down and beat him.”

Courtesy www.frankmaloney.com