Two years before championship fights I would train first thing, around 5.30am for two hours. I needed no motivation. I would do stretching, shadow boxing, beach running, more stretching, push ups, sit ups and skipping.

Then start gym work at 2pm or 4pm depending on how I felt. It was no chore for me to train in this time, especially my first year and a half boxing in Britain. One was hungry and needed no alarm clock. One would find himself running to the gymnasium.

The routine in this time was 15 minutes of stretching, 15 minutes of shadow boxing, 8-10 rounds of sparring and 15 minutes of speedball. This would be at King Alfred Leisure Centre, Jack Pook gym or the Matchroom gym.

I would hit the speedball in the way I hit it in New York, I had my own way. If I had no sparring partners, I'd hit the heavy bag and take medicine ball hits. Sometimes Ronnie would take me on the pads and we worked on moves together, each offering ideas. But we clashed so I limited it.

That was seven days a week. I never took a day off training, not even if I was ill or injured, because that was being too much of a temperamental fighter whereas I was dedicated to being consistent. Never cancelled a fight. I'd sometimes be training hard at 5 or 6 in the evening despite having a professional fight the following evening.

Chris