BOURNEMOUTH, England – The pressure is on Ryan Garner once again.
The Southampton junior lightweight and reigning European champion stakes his belt and his undefeated record against veteran Reece Bellotti in Bournemouth tonight, inching toward his dream of headlining a stadium fight at St Mary’s, home of his beloved Southampton FC soccer team.
He is fighting at the Bournemouth International Centre against Bellotti, about 25 miles from his home, having impressed in claiming the EBU title here earlier in the year against then-unbeaten Spaniard Salvador Jimenez.
There’s been no bad blood between Garner and Bellotti. Bellotti in fact told BoxingScene that he viewed Garner as a mirror image of himself.
An all-action fight is expected. But Garner admits Bellotti – who has moved up in weight in recent years – had not been on his radar.
“Never really, no,” Garner told BoxingScene. “Do you know what I think it is? Queensberry and Matchroom are [working] together. You never think those kind of things happen, do you, really? It’s always normally Queensberry fighting Queensberry, Matchroom fighting Matchroom. So there’s going to be loads more fights down the line, I think, now. He took a couple of those losses back in the day, obviously, Ray Ford and a couple more.”
And while Bellotti is in the midst of a career resurgence, Garner has not paid much attention to the British and Commonwealth champion.
“I don’t watch loads of boxing, mate,” said the diehard soccer fan. “I didn’t watch none of them fights [the last six Bellotti has won], so I don’t know how they went on. I know, obviously, he’s changed weights and that. He’s gone up through the weights, over the years. I’ve never really paid much attention to it.”
What Garner has done, under trainer Wayne Batten, is focus on what he’s doing. He impressed against Jimenez in March winning every round, and Garner, now 27 years old and 17-0 (8 KOs), can feel the improvement.
“I believe with each fight I’m getting better and better,” he said. “Because I’m staying more in the gym, I’m sparring good fighters. I believe I’m developing. I’m just getting that ring generalship. With each camp I’m getting better and better, and I believe I will show again this Saturday.”
There has been momentum towards that coveted St Mary’s bout, but talk for now should be only about Bellotti, 20-5 (15 KOs). He deserves that level of respect and not to be taken for granted.
Five times Bellotti has tasted defeat, and while Garner hopes to avoid that unpleasant flavour, he accepts the possibility that it will likely find him at some point.
“Listen, it’s boxing. I’ve lost to the amateurs,” Garner added. “I’d be very surprised if I went through my whole career without losing. I believe I’m good, but listen, anyone can beat anyone on the day. I could not turn up one day and go and get beat. So it doesn’t bother me, nothing like that. I just know I’ll just turn up and do me, and that’s it.”
On Bellotti and this scheduled war, Garner indicated this week at Thursday’s press conference that he might have another approach in mind, and without revealing the team’s strategy, he said: “I’ve got more tools in my armoury than that. I’m not just a fighter. I can box, I can fight. I believe I can do it all and we’ll see on Saturday.”
That means he will be happy to box Bellotti, and to bang with him.
“I think it’ll be a mixture of both,” he continued. “I’ll fight when I need to fight and I’ll box when I need to box. I’ll just do me. That’s all.”
Garner estimates he has sold around 1,000 tickets, which is a tough job while deep in training camp, but he’s grateful having another fight closer to home.
“Even though it’s hard work doing the ticket sales, because there’s a lot more people coming, it’s good to get as many support as possible,” he said.
Some of Garner’s friends were, on Thursday, yet to collect their tickets. Others were changing their orders.
“People leave it last minute. People always say [one thing], it’s just hard work,” he admitted.
“A lot of people want six and then they want four and all the rest of it. I’ve got to try and chop and change it all the time. Then they want another one, to add on. I’m like, ‘I can’t now.’ But I get people come to the gym or quite a few people I do drive around and drop them off, but it’s hard. Last time I did a lot more driving around. But this time, I’ve got two kids, I’m training, I want to spend time with them. So a lot of people come to my house. God forbid what the neighbors think. People keep coming and knocking on my door. Listen, I’m lucky. I’m lucky to have the backing I’ve got. The people from my city, they all want to see me do well and they all want to come out and support. So I’m thankful. It’s a dream really, having all these people.”
The dream, of course, is St Mary’s, and fighting even closer to home.
“June next year, I believe,” Garner said optimistically. “There’ve been talks, nothing’s cemented, but we – Queensberry and obviously Southampton Football Club – there’ve been talks. Potentially in June next year. So it’s all depending on me.”
