Jack Catterall was joined by hundreds of fans Tuesday night in Chorley where he hosted a special community 5k run in his hometown one month out from his blockbuster super-lightweight showdown with two-time world champion Regis Prograis at Co-op Live in Manchester on Saturday August 24, shown live worldwide on DAZN.
'El Gato' (29-1, 13 KOs) ended a two-year wait for revenge by beating bitter rival Josh Taylor in Leeds back in May, outpointing the Scotsman over 12 electric rounds in front of over 11,000 fans in one of the best British bouts of the year so far.
The world champion in waiting is busy gearing up for the biggest night of his career against New Orleans' 'Rougarou’, but made time for his community by putting on a free family fun run at Astley Park on Tuesday evening.
"We only put this together on Thursday last week and I'm blown away by the fantastic turnout," said Catterall.
"One of my good friends Reece Brown has a running club, it's only a new running club that's opened in the past couple of months, and it's something that we came up with together ahead of my next fight to get the community out together. The weather picked up a little bit so we thought, you know what, we're going to make something of it.
"Matchroom kindly gifted hundreds of t-shirts to everybody and we've all had a laugh. It's been good. Everybody gave it their best and we all stuck together as a team and it was fun. I'm very grateful to all of my fans. I have a great support system. It's not about giving back but little things like this run get people engaged. We got a few people out that might not have necessarily gone for a run on a Tuesday night.
"I'm so grateful for all of the support I receive. We had a lot of local boxing gyms come down including Jennings Gym and Chorley Boxing Club, which was great to see. We also had the local football clubs come down too, so there was a good mix of people who made the effort. Everybody is taking part and that's what it's about."
Catterall is keen to keep the momentum building after his career-best win in Yorkshire and the 31-year-old Jamie Moore-trained talent knows he is within touching distance of another shot at world honours should he defeat Prograis.
"It's a great fight and I didn't want a non-world title fight that wouldn't be meaningful to me. I was scheduled to fight Regis before, he's a two-time world champion and it's a big fight that the fans are familiar with. There were other fights out there for me but none of them would have got me up for it like I am with this one.
"You can't predict what the future holds. I've stayed in the gym and I've stayed disciplined. I've got a good support system and a good training team. I've had the activity now so I think that's been lacking in my career over the past couple of years. I'm just making the most of every day and every situation I'm in. I'm really looking forward to this fight."
Catterall vs. Prograis tops a huge night of action in Manchester. Romford heavyweight sensation Johnny Fisher (12-0, 11 KOs) looks to build on his sensational one-round destruction of Alen Babic when he takes on Ukraine's Andrii Rudenko (36-7, 22 KOs), Warrington's Rhiannon Dixon (10-0, 1 KO) makes the first defence of her WBO lightweight world title in an all-British clash with Denaby Main's former two-weight world champion Terri Harper (14-2-2, 6 KOs), Sunderland's Pat McCormack (5-0, 4 KOs) meets Argentina's Williams Andres Herrera (16-3, 7 KOs) for the vacant WBA Intercontinental welterweight title and there's action for Liverpool featherweight talent Joe McGrail (10-0, 5 KOs), Hyde super-lightweight Campbell Hatton (14-1, 5 KO), Liverpool middleweight Ste Clarke (4-0, 1 KO), Manchester welterweight talent William Crolla (5-0, 4 KOs) and Heywood bantamweight debutant Emily Whitworth.
Live on DAZN: Terence Crawford vs. Israil Madrimov on August 3. Click here for details.