Dereck Chisora detailed just how hard he has been working in preparation for this Saturday’s fight with Oleksandr Usyk.
The 36-year-old has spent most of the lockdown training, and without competitive action to get in the way he has had largely uninterrupted access to training.
“First of all, I feel great. My mind is bright. I’m just happy I’m fighting this year.
“I had a great camp. I’ve been training for about nine months for this fight. I had one week off since I’ve boxed David Price.”
Chisora believes he has trained smarter and more consistently than at any previous time in his career saying: “I’m more patient with everything we’re doing.
“I didn’t have any breakdowns in my body. My mind is right. I think it’s the best training camp I had since I became a professional.
“There weren’t eight or nine weeks to rush a job. Two of my gyms got opened only for me. Put me in this position with my mindset.
“Fighters who train for two or three hours a day, that’s stupid. What I did was train every day in lockdown, I trained for an hour.
“Then I’d train in the evening for an hour. For an hour you have to train hard. If you train for three hours hard you can’t train tomorrow.”
While manager David Haye, “sits and watches,” his most important contribution Chisora believes is to, “get the right people around to do a job for me that he’d used for his past training camps.
“We’ve already started doing it. We have a gym, when we spar there’s no music. We trained today with no music. Trying to get into that vibe of fighting with no crowd.”
Asked if he would be able to go the distance if needed, Chisora pointed to his regime.
“I’ve knocked out all my sparring partners.
“We did two weeks of sparring back to back. Four rounds, eight, ten, twelve. We did a hell week where we did so much cardio for an hour, no rest.
“Then back to two weeks of sparring back to back.”