The importance of winning a British title can never be discounted. Not only does it make you No. 1 in the land, but it earns you the chance of wearing one of boxing’s most prestigious awards, the Lord Lonsdale Belt.
That is motivation enough for Brad Rea to move forward in his career, as he looks to rebound from his narrow defeat to Lyndon Arthur in November at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena, where he lines up against Liam Cameron on Saturday.
The Sheffield man is someone Rea knows well although they’ve never worked together. In fact, the 28-year-old Rea nearly called Cameron for sparring when it looked as though Rea, 21-2 (10 KOs), might fight Zach Parker and Cameron was going to rematch Arthur.
“That British title has been the one, since I was 10 years old I’ve wanted that title,” Rea told BoxingScene. “I’ve always had my sights on that title. So if I could get myself in a position to fight for that, pick that British title up, that’d be ideal.”
He is ready to rematch Arthur if need be.
Rea dropped the Manchester veteran with a left hook in the second round before losing a majority verdict, but he knows that his promoter Frank Warren has a deep pool of talent at 175lbs.
“It was one of the main things that excited me so much about signing with Queensberry, I knew that the majority of the best domestic light heavyweights are all under one roof and I knew there was going to be big fights for me,” Rea added. “Look, things didn’t go my way last time out. I feel like I’ve put on a good performance, I feel like I was in an entertaining, fan-friendly fight, and I feel like I’ve shown that although I didn’t get the nod, I am up at that level. It’s nice to know that I’ve kind of got that security of having dates and being in these big fights, because it’s something that I didn’t have for a long time. I didn’t know when the next fight was going to come. I didn’t know when the next payday was around the corner and it was tough, but it is nice to kind of be in the mix now and know that the phone’s going to ring.”
He also believes that the second defeat of his career to Arthur – the first defeat came against accomplished Tyler Denny in 2022 – has taught him valuable lessons.
“You learn from them losses,” he said. “If I would have hit Lyndon and he never got up from that shot, I wouldn’t have analysed the fight and I wouldn’t have known where we went wrong and I wouldn’t have put them wrongs right in this camp. It was a big learning fight for me. But I think in future fights and five, six fights down the line, I’m going to look back at that fight the same way I look back at the Denny fight and I’ll thank Lyndon the same way I thank Tyler because the lessons I learned in them fights already, they progressed me and they made me a better fighter.”
Apart from the obvious, what made the defeat to Arthur sting more was that Rea had treated it as a dedication to his late trainer, Ricky Hatton. There was a Hatton-Manchester City theme throughout Rea’s appearance that night, and Rea said being in a fight without the Hitman by his side was hard.
“I don’t forget, you know what I mean?” Rea said, discussing the passage of time since the beloved Hatton passed. “But it’s out of the mind at some points. And then, because he was this figure where he was everywhere, and so many people have got attachments to him and memories of him… And I’m friends with a lot of his friends now and it’s hard to escape. It is hard to escape. But especially now, with the fight coming up again and it is being brought up, it’s tough. But, you know, I wanted to go out there with him in the fight [against Arthur] and try and do him proud. And I think I would have. I think, putting the jokes aside, he would have been proud of me. But he still would have had a few jibs afterwards about getting beat by a [Manchester] United fan.”
Initially, of course, Rea took the loss hard. He’s a competitor and he’d worked hard. But now he has the chance to put any perceived wrongs right.
He also wants to deliver for those who pay to watch him.
“I feel like the difference in the fight [with Arthur] was experience and not my lack of experience because I’ve been boxing since I was eight years old and I’ve been in these fights before but I’ve only had one 12-rounder before and not with someone who’s been in at the level Lyndon’s been at. I put him over early, I knew I hurt him and I knew I could hurt him and, I say it all the time, I’m a fighter. I’m a fight fan. I sit at home every weekend and I watch every show that’s on and I watch the prelims and YouTube at five o’clock and I know what boxing fans want to see. You want to see knockouts, you want to see stoppages and every time I’m in the ring, that’s what I push for. I want to knock someone out and I knew I hurt him. I knew I could hurt him. I knew I was hurting him early on and maybe I just looked for it a bit too much and maybe you use the experience to ride that early storm and come on strong in the second half of the fight and it came to bite me in the arse a little bit. I think that was the big difference, the experience, but the 12 rounds with Lyndon is a fight that I’ve gained massive experience from already and we’ve been working on what went wrong and I think I’m going to show a little bit more of an experienced look.”
The idea is for Rea to keep taking part in big fights and to make boxing work for him.
He wants to fight in Manchester and sell out venues.
“I want to do what all the boxers that I used to watch when I was a kid did,” he said. “But most importantly, I just want to box. I don’t want to do anything else. I don’t want to work in Tesco. I don’t want to have a nine-to-five. I don’t want to have an office job. What I’m doing, if someone would have asked me what my dream job was when I was 10 years old, it’s exactly what I'm doing right now and I love it. I love every morning, I have a big smile on my face every day when I wake up, when I’m in the gym and as hard as it is, I just love doing what I’m doing and I just want to live this life for as long as I possibly can and that’s why this fight is a must-win fight because if I start racking up losses, if I have a few on the bounce this life very quickly disappears and I’m not willing to live another life.”
