BACK in February, James Dickens pulled one of the upsets of the year thus far, but he has since been left twiddling his thumbs. Now, the Liverpudlian ventures to Istanbul for an unconventional clash against Albert Batyrgaziev, which he expects to be a ‘grueller’.
A former British champion and world title challenger, aged 33 years old with 39 bouts to his name, it seemed as though Dickens, 35-5 (14 KOs), was on his way out of the sport when he signed to take on Zelfa Barrett in Manchester.
Yet, ‘Jazza’ was able to boss the encounter to make a fool of the bookmakers’ odds and supposed experts’ predictions, dominating Barrett in a unanimous decision win and subsequently earning a contract with Matchroom Boxing.
Speaking exclusively to Boxing News, Dickens revealed his belief that he has since been ‘shelved’ by Eddie Hearn’s promotional outfit, despite the astonishing performance against Barrett, forcing him to look elsewhere for a fight.
“They sort of put me on a shelf. Five months had gone by before they [Matchroom] said ‘actually, you can go and do your own thing, and we will support you to go and get a fight’.”
“I was lucky and blessed to be in a position where I had a good team around me that could put this fight together.”
Now Dickens travels to Turkey, in a gutsy move to take on the well-respected and undefeated Russian super-featherweight Albert Batyrgaziev, 12-0 (8 KOs), who claimed the featherweight gold medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Under no illusions of the task at hand, Dickens admits that he is planning for a tough fight.
“I am expecting a gruelling fight because of his style. He has fought Jono Carroll, and my coach Albert [Ayrapetyan] had experience [against Batyrgaziev] in that fight with Jono, so we have come up with the game plan and I believe it’s going to be a grueller.
“It is going to be a tough, tough fight. He is a great fighter and if he was from the western world we would know a lot more about him and we’d be expecting him to go on and do better things, but Jazza is going to upset the apple cart once again.”
As Dickens mentioned, the impressive credentials of Batyrgaziev have not equated to the global appreciation that an American or British Olympic gold medallist may have received.
However, rather than thinking of the risks that come with losing to a lesser recognised name, Dickens’ viewpoint was that facing Batyrgaziev is better than not fighting at all, after being ‘avoided’ by the likes of Leigh Wood and Josh Warrington.
“Where does it leave me if I don’t fight him? That’s how you have to look at it. No one is going to fight me in England, they’ll probably give it another five years before they want to fight ‘Jazza’ again, just in case he is not totally spent.
“They brought me in thinking that I was just going to roll over and when it didn’t happen it’s now become ‘Jazza is back, stay away from that man’. I really believe that I have been avoided, so I’m going to the Middle East to fight the Russians!”
“[Leigh Wood] just said ‘no, avoid Jazza like the plague, he is not dead yet’ like they all say. That was it basically, ‘Jazza is not dead yet, we will stay away from that man’. He had to fight me at one point because we were in the Golden Contract tournament, and he found out. Then, when he was asked again, he refused that fight.
“Josh Warrington refused to fight me, I could go on and on and on about so many fighters in Britain who don’t want to fight me.”
Batyrgaziev-Dickens headlines the IBA Pro card on Wednesday, July 2, where a number of high-profile celebrities and fighters are expected to be in attendance, for what the popular scouser hopes to be another surprising win.
