Birmingham Heavyweight, Solomon Dacres is aiming for a knockout when he takes on Spain’s Alvaro Terrero at the Vertu Motors Arena, Newcastle on Saturday, June 12.
The former Team GB amateur standout, now trained by Max McCracken, won his first professional fight on points by battering Bulgaria’s Mladen Manev for six rounds on the Buatsi vs. Dos Santos undercard at Manchester Arena last month.
The 6ft 5ins 27-year-old, who is managed by Adam Morallee and Sam Jones of S-JAM Boxing, says he is reaping the rewards from sparring with undefeated British, European and Commonwealth Champion Joe Joyce ahead of this weekend’s clash.
“It’s good to get regular sparring with Joe,” said Dacres. “He’s in big fights now and he’s at the top level of the game. It’s good to come down here regularly and get good quality rounds. Joe has got the engine and it’s a high pace.
“It’s good to keep sparring with the top guys. No disrespect to opponents, but early on in your career you’re not going to face the top guys in the game, so it’s good to keep that level of boxing in the sparring.
“I’ll fight anyone. That’s just the type of person I am. I want to fight. I put the work in so I can fight anyone. Sometimes you’ve got to have managers and trainers to look from the outside and hold you back a bit and build you in the right way. That’s why you have a good team around you, and you build yourself properly.
“I’ve just got to make sure that I really put myself in the best position for when it comes. I’ve been doing that since I started boxing, working hard to build myself that platform. Now it’s there, I’m not going to let it go to waste. I’ve just got to keep putting myself through all of the hard training and stay dedicated.
“I’ve got to treat all of my opponents like they’re the best people out there getting in front of me. I don’t want to have ten fights against people that are only going to last two or three rounds.
“You want to progress to that level, because you’ve seen fighters in the past that have had easy touches for so many fights and then come unstuck when they’ve stepped up. I don’t want that to happen to me – I’ve got to keep on improving all of the time. I’m not resting on my laurels – I’m going to keep on working hard to get to the top.
“Manev came to survive. Sometimes those guys just tuck up and they prepare themselves to take punishment. He was prepared to take shots and didn’t open up much. I kept my patience and I got the six rounds in. It was more about me showing I could keep up the work rate. I thought my punch selection was good.
“There are certain things to work on of course – we want to sit down on the shots more, but he didn’t open up for us much. It wasn’t much of a boxing contest. It was more of a war of attrition really. It was good to get in there and get the rust off.
“I’m a Heavyweight. Heavyweight boxing – you want to get knockouts at times. Sometimes you do want to pace yourself when it’s the right time to do so. We’re working on things in the gym as well – sitting down on our shots and we want to get knockouts. It’s Heavyweight boxing – people want to see knockouts. I’m definitely coming for one.
“We’ve had one World Champion from Birmingham. We’ve never had a Heavyweight Champion, so that’s something I’m aiming to achieve.
“If I can bring that to Birmingham, big shows to Birmingham, it’s going to be huge for the city and hopefully they can get behind me and we can look forward to some big nights. I’ve boxed all around the world internationally for Team GB but boxing in my home city would make me massively proud.”
Dacres vs. Terrero is part of a big night of action in Newcastle as fans return in the North East, Lewis Ritson (21-1, 12 KOs) meets undefeated Argentinian Jeremias Ponce (27-0, 17 KOs) in a Final Eliminator for the IBF Super-Lightweight World Title.
Full interview with Solomon Dacres:
