Umar Sadiq: ‘The opponent never intimidates me’

Umar Sadiq

Were you nervous when you made your pro debut, after being out of actionย for a while?

From my debut I felt there wasnโ€™t much difference in it. You are still fighting another man thatโ€™s trying to hurt you.

Iโ€™m typically an emotionally balanced personโ€ฆ I tend to take a lot of things in my stride. From my debut it was more the same.

I wasnโ€™t particularly nervous at all. Iโ€™m more concerned about putting on a good performance than anything else. I had that even in the amateurs. In the amateurs itโ€™s well documented I had a fair few bad decisions. I used to go into fights worrying more about the judges than the opponents. This is when Iโ€™m fighting some of the best fighters in the country or the world. Again the opponent never intimidates me.

Do you think youโ€™ll stay at super-middleweight?

Ultimately Iโ€™d rather move up. Right now the light-heavyweight division is lively. In about five years time it probably still will be and I think thatโ€™s the time Iโ€™d like to move up. So I want to establish myself at super-middle and dominate it for a bit. If itโ€™s still lively at that time and there are fights out there I might stay put. But if itโ€™s a case where thereโ€™s not really anything eventually Iโ€™ll end up moving up.

I was always a light light-heavy [as an amateur]. I used to train for performance rather than making weight.

Are there any super-middleweights youโ€™re looking at at the moment for fights down the line?

The truth is all of them. As long as they keep boxing thereโ€™s always a chance that Iโ€™ll box them. Another tournament like the WBSS might come up. They might have a title that I want, I might have a title that they want. Fans may demand a certain fight. Sometimes rivalries get built out of nothing. You never really know. There are so many reasons why I could fight anybody.

Then having said that, there are too many fighters out there to keep an eye on. I just keep it simple and keep it about myself.

Do you want to move quickly or take it step by step?

Iโ€™ve always been open about wanting to move quickly. Seeing Lawrence [Okolie, headlining at the O2] has made me really happy. Heโ€™s not just a stablemate, heโ€™s a good friend. His success is my success, in a way. We celebrate each otherโ€™s successes and achievements. For me personally what thatโ€™s done is just reinforce that anything is possible. Keep your head down, keep grafting. You have to respect the graft that heโ€™s put in. He turned pro and he was in the gym. Fight after fight, heโ€™s grafting. I see him day in day out, see what heโ€™s doing, what he puts into the sport. Things just fell into place for the O2. That wasnโ€™t something that was planned.

umar sadiq

You used to be an accountant but youโ€™re now also a model outside of boxing?

Out of boxing what I do is modellingโ€ฆ A lot of fighters have intensive jobs like labouring or go to an office, some fighters work night shifts. I canโ€™t even try to imagine what it would be like to have to do that and do that amount of training that Iโ€™m doing. So credit to all the fighters who are making it work.

The boxing’s the main career, the modelling is something I do on the side.

Share Page