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Galahad ‘won’t take his eye off the ball’ against Martinez

Galahad wins the title against Dickens. Photo by Ian Walton/ Matchroom Boxing
Fighters Network
09
Nov

IBF featherweight champion Kid Galahad insists his hometown fans will see the best of him when he takes on Spanish veteran Kiko Martinez on Saturday (Nov. 13) at the Sheffield Arena.

Martinez has been criticized in some quarters for being too old and not being the fighter he once was, but Galahad has trained as though his life depends upon it. The champion has not been out of the gym since defeating Jazza Dickens for the title in August and despite many saying it will be a routine night at the office for Galahad, he refuses to believe them.

The Dominic-Ingle trained fighter knows if he slips up, a 2022 dream unification fight against Emanuel Navarrete disappears.

“Every fight, when I go in there, I’m at the level where I need to go in there and do a job,” said the 31-year-old. “I don’t want to leave it in the referee’s hands. Of course I don’t. I want to go in there and bring my own judges to the fight. I don’t want to just go in there and beat him, I want to go in there and smash him up and that’s what I’m going to do. You can’t afford to make mistakes in this game and I can’t afford to get beat because there’s no other plan for me. People just want winners. People don’t want people who just come second best.”



Galahad saw his domestic rival Josh Warrington come unstuck against Mauricio Lara in one of the year’s biggest shocks and he’s vowed that he will never be accused of complacency.

“Josh Warrington isn’t the first fighter to take his eye off the ball and he isn’t going to be the last,” he continued. “A couple of weeks ago Mikey Garcia was beaten by a Spanish kid [Sandor Martin] and that’s a big scalp and who would have thought he would have been beat by him. He took his eye off the ball and he got beat and that’s what happens in this game. You can’t afford to make mistakes. You’ve got to be on it all the time. This is like no other sport. It’s not like football where you might lose this one and the next one you can win. No, that’s not it. You get beat and your career could be over. You could get killed. You don’t know.”

And Galahad has been around the sport an awful long time. As a kid, he started taking two bus trips to make it across town to train under the late Brendan Ingle and over the years he’s seen dozens of champions come and go and many fail to fulfil their potential. While he is quick to credit Dominic for his success today, he knows that if it wasn’t for the famed Brendan Ingle, he wouldn’t be a champion.

“I was so lucky to have a trainer like Brendan,” Galahad said. “If I didn’t have him, I don’t think I’d be in this position I’m in now, with him installing everything in me. I probably wouldn’t. I don’t think the Juniors [Witter], the Kells [Brook], Ryan Rhodes, Herol Grahams… without Brendan I don’t think anyone would have got to this point. I’m lucky to have had a trainer like him. There were kids in the gym who were better than me, they just didn’t have the belief, and I always had the belief that I would get there. Brendan would say, ‘You’re going to be a champion, you’re going to be a champion’ and I believed it. I just think some of them didn’t believe it. They didn’t believe in the process, that’s probably why I got to where I got.”

Galahad has also seen some fighters reach the top and lose their hunger and desire. He has promised that won’t happen to him. He’s watched and learned from starting on the bottom rung to now being the star of the fabled Wincobank gym.

“I’ve been around all these fighters, like your Johnny Nelsons, your Junior Witters, Kell Brooks, and other kids like Danny McIntosh, Bob Ajisafe, Ryan Rhodes, Esham Pickering… I was around these guys when they were fighting, so I learned a lot off them. And just being around them… Brendan and Dom would take me everywhere so you’d see things.”
One of the things he learned about many years ago was a hard-punching Spaniard Kiko Martinez, who was in line to face Galahad’s then stablemate and European champion Esham Pickering. Little did Galahad know that almost 15 years on and he is the one facing the veteran 35-year-old with a 42-10-2 record.

Galahad is 28-1 and his dreams lie well beyond Martinez but he knows to realise them, to win more belts, he cannot afford to slip up.

And he wants more belts.

“Slowly but surely, I’m going to get them,” he said.

MARTINEZ READY FOR GALAHAD OPPORTUNITY

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