SE: I think the best thing is when the first phone call… John will ring and he’ll be like, ‘Listen, I just had to phone you. They want you to fight, blah, blah,’ or ‘this is up for grabs,’ or ‘you’ve been made mandatory.’ That first realisation that there’s a fight, not even at the weigh-in or the press conference or even before the fight, getting your hands wrapped… That first phone call, and that first jitter you get, it’s a hard feeling to mimic. You know someone’s going through hell and back to do a job on you and you’re always having them thoughts, ‘Am I going to turn up fitter than him?’ ‘Is he better than me?’ Even if you know you’re better than him, it doesn’t matter who you’re fighting. You could be doing a six rounder against, I don’t know, a foreign bin man. It doesn’t matter. You’re still having them thoughts in your head thinking, ‘Do you reckon he could turn up [and perform]?’ ‘I know he’s a journeyman, but what if he’s coming to win this one?’ It’s them thoughts that you miss, because again, nothing can mimic it, nothing.
