Paul Smith has admitted to nerves ahead of his debut in MMA at Oktagon 48 this Saturday.
He will take on X Factor star Jake Quickenden as part of the Stage to the Cage experiment, which sees two celebrities commit to cage fighting before facing off after months of training.
The duo will fight at the AO Arena in Manchester, live on DAZN, and Smith is facing a daunting prospect.
He told Oktagon MMA: “It’s a cocktail of emotions. I'm nervous about it. I'm scared. I'm excited. But I feel prepared for it, which is a weird thing to say.
“The threat of being punched in the face repeatedly is a good motivator to prepare properly and it's been a tough year. Part of me is feeling scared - it's a fight and he’s a big athletic, strong looking guy, so obviously going to be a tough 15 min - but the rounds I'm doing in the gym, I'm thinking [the fight] will be an easy week for me. I'm kind of excited and then I can get fat again.
“I really want to win, I am very competitive. I wouldn't lie about that. But beyond that I just want it to be a good fight. I want to show that we have put this work in.
“I don’t want to disparage anyone but it’s not going to be like some of the recent celebrity fights. They’re a joke. They’re embarrassing some of them - not all of them - but some of them. I know we've both put a lot of work into this, So I want it to look like we’re not complete beginners.
“And we have got skills and we have learned certain things over the last year, and I wanted [it] to be a competitive entertaining fight. if I come out of a competitive, entertaining fight and I've lost, I've got caught with something, I'll be happy with that.
“I think I'll be able to live with that. Ideally, though I just walk out and smash his f***** head in.”