Unbeaten prospect Sam Cox looking for fifth straight win
Super-bantamweight prospect Sam Cox (4-0, 1KO) is looking to go 5-0 this Saturday at Bethnal Green's 'Home of Boxing' York Hall in his first six-round contest.
The youngster has had a turbulent time outside of the ropes with family bereavements, but is focusing his energy on his forthcoming fight to kick off the new season in style and fulfil a family promise.
Sam, 24 from Islington, said "My first six-rounder this weekend will be a great test for the jump up to title fights early next year".
Signed to Goodwin Promotions, Sam is facing southpaw Steven 'Livewire' Maguire (0-15), 33 from Middleton, and claims this is his best training camp to date, "Training has been great, I've adapted well to going more rounds and have been doing some great southpaw sparring with Harvey Horn".
Cox's opponent, despite never winning a fight, has taken rounds from four of his last five opponents. He has only been stopped once in his last dozen contests, which was a first-round TKO at the hands of English flyweight champion Kyle 'Golden Kid' Yousaf (15-0).
The North Londoner has had a rough year outside of the ring so far having tragically lost both his mother and grandmother in the first few months of 2019 through cancer. Sam found out his mother was diagnosed with liver cancer shortly after winning his professional debut back in July 2017.
He said on the sorrowful subject, "I promised my mum and nan that I'd always give boxing my all. That's what I owe them now, and it has to be done for them".
Sam is hoping that a quality performance resulting in a convincing win on the weekend will put him in the perfect position to earn a title shot in early 2020.
"I want a Southern Area or English title shot in early 2020 after another test in November or December this year," he asserted.
Michael Ramabeletsa (17-17) is the current English super-bantamweight champion and will meet his mandatory challenger Jack Bateson (10-0) on October 12 in Leeds.
Bristol's 31-year-old 'Gasman' Duane Winters (11-2) is the Southern Area titleholder, who was most recently seen live on BBC Scotland being completely outclassed and dismantled in one round by Kash Farooq (13-0) in a third defence of his British title.
Sam's fifth professional contest will be on the undercard of Sam O'maison's (16-2-1) maiden English super-lightweight title defence to Kay Prosper (12-1-1).
Co-headlining will be Wadi Camacho (21-8) looking to land the vacant English cruiserweight strap against unbeaten prospect Deion Jumah (11-0).
There's a third tantalising title fight on the same packed bill featuring Londoner Ramez Mahmood (9-0) and Kent's Jack Budge (4-0) who both clash for the vacant Southern Area featherweight title.