CHORLEY super-lightweight Jack Catterall will box an eight rounder on the April 27 bill at Wembley Arena before pushing for his mandatory shot against WBO world champion Maurice Hooker.
“I’m just preparing for anybody,” Catterall told Boxing News. “This eight-round fight to keep busy and then we’ll look at this fight with Hooker, how it’s going to materialise after this.
“Every fight now is important to me. It always has been. I will be going out there like it’s a world title fight. I win in good fashion in London and it’ll set me up nicely for the next fight.”
Catterall is the number one in the WBO’s 140lbs rankings and will be Hooker’s mandatory challenger eventually. Jack has had all of his fights in England but he has joined to the most successful camps in America for sparring and would be quite prepared to challenge Hooker in the United States, whoever promotes the show and whichever broadcaster televises it. “Once the WBO call the fight, maybe it’ll go to purse bids and it’s whoever wins the purse bid. It makes no difference to me where the fight is. I’ve boxed only over here but I’ve boxed in plenty of back gardens so to speak. I think I’d thrive off the opportunity to go over to America and fight. But likewise it would be lovely to have the fight here. It’s going to make no difference,” he said. “It’ll be interesting to see what happens.”
“I just want to get the fight on, whether it’s over there or over here it really doesn’t matter,” he continued. “It’s known that I’ve had quite a lot of high profile sparring, which I’m grateful for. It’s always put me in good stead and brought me on leaps and bounds. I’ve been over there, I’ve had high class sparring over here. That’s definitely helped me to become the fighter I’m becoming.
“You’ve got to find your recipe for success and everybody’s recipe is different. For me being in all these different world title camps, with Floyd [Mayweather], with Canelo, sparring Amir Khan, I sparred Kell Brook, you’re able to see how they’re preparing for their big world title fights and if you can take little percentages away and knowledge away from each of these for it’s matured me and helped my knowledge of boxing looking at how them champions have prepared.”
Catterall believes that he now belongs along the world’s best. “I’ve beat a lot of domestic fighters now. I want to step out of that and test myself against the rest of the elite fighters in the division,” he maintains.
He has been studying Hooker closely and relishes the thought of taking him on. “When I fight him I expect him to be at his best,” Catterall said but added, “There wasn’t anything I’ve seen that I’m overly concerned about him if I were to fight him.
“I know that he’s tall and he’s got a long reach. It’s how creative I am at closing the distance. I can’t go forward in straight lines like Terry Flanagan did. You’d expect to be caught with straight lines coming in. I’ve got to use my feet well and I’ve got to break him down, slow him right down. I’ve seen him hurt to the body before so I’ve got to [do that]. I’ve got a gameplan and I’ve got certain things that we’re working on. I believe I’ve got the beating of him.”
With Josh Taylor and Regis Prograis looking good in the World Boxing Super Series, there are exciting fights to be made at 140lbs. “My division’s thriving at the moment. There are a lot of great fights. For me I’ve got to take care of business in a couple of weeks and then hopefully get a world title fight. But then you’ve got the World Boxing Super Series, you’ve got all the lads in and around that tournament. They’re the actual fights that I want to be made in the future. I want to test myself,” Catterall says.
“I’ve got to work my way into position to get these big fights.”
