HOW did you and your new trainer Stephen Smith link up?
It come about first and foremost from my strength and conditioning coach, Johnny Reynolds, who works with a lot of the top coaches. I was in no man’s land. After leaving my old coach [Joe Gallagher], I was thinking about who I was gonna go with. I didn’t want to be another number in a gym. I was in limbo, training in Portugal. I started managing myself and I weren’t gonna rush it, because I’ve rushed things too many times and I’ve learned from my mistakes. I was taking my time assessing who I was gonna go with. Then I come over to a Matchroom show to get networking. I went down to have a session with my strength coach, and he told me Stephen Smith’s going into training. I couldn’t believe it, because he’s always someone I’ve looked up to coming through the amateurs and even on the pro circuit. He was always nice to me when I was coming through as a prospect. It was like a match made in heaven. The penny dropped.
I know Stephen through his brothers as well and the experience speaks for itself. He’s been in two ‘world’
