IF I had beaten Andy Ruiz Jnr, if I had finished him off in the third round, people would be saying nothing went wrong. That wasn’t how it worked out but I’m not going to blame anything or anyone else for what happened.
I lost, Andy Ruiz was the better man and I have to take that on the chin and roll with the punches. I don’t want to say something went wrong when nothing went wrong. I’ve got a great team around me.
People have suggested I should have a warm-up fight before Ruiz. But what’s a warm-up fight? I don’t fight warm-up fights. For me, that would be stupid.
The loss has settled in. I can’t dwell on it and I can’t mourn over the defeat. I must now correct what went wrong. I have to adjust. I have to sit down and watch it, and learn from it, and then I go again.
My dad is upset that I lost, and that’s a natural reaction. He’s told me I need to tighten up and get smarter. When things are going well, it’s not like that but now something has gone wrong, I respect the advice to improve. My mum is cool, though she doesn’t come to the boxing, she has to separate her son from the fighter.
I have to thank my parents and I have to thank the fans and my team. This makes it sound like this is the end, but it’s not. There is so much more to come from me.
At the end of the day this is one loss. And this boxing game can be like Snakes and Ladders. We go up, we go down. I’m not going to lie to people. Winning is everything to me and I can’t lose that competitive edge. I don’t want to sit here and say, ‘Yeah, losing is fine.’ Not in my book. Now I have to readjust, reset and bounce back and that’s the key to future success. This is all part of the war. That was a battle, I lost it, but what continent are we going to next?
The hunger remains. Boxing remains my life and it has to, because being a boxer is a lifestyle. I appreciate my education. I was starting to learn new things. My hunger is not just about boxing, it’s about my entire life and I am still grinding, I am still learning and I just want to get back to work. This is boxing, this is who I am. I have no excuses for what happened against Andy Ruiz and I take responsibility for the loss. Losing is not something we like, but it is now something that we learn from.
All I want is the rematch. I don’t care where it happens, whether it’s in the UK or the USA, as long as there is a boxing ring, that’s all that matters. I am now focused on revenge.
