Duncan Scott: There’s fewer nerves than usual ahead of this year’s British Champs<\/a>\n<\/p>\n\n And while a draw is far from a disastrous result by anyone\u2019s standards, the 29-year-old admits it took him quite some time to come to terms with his failure to defeat the Spaniard last October.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI’m still not really over that draw because, until then, I’d not ever had anybody even come close to me, never mind drawing with me.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt was a slightly controversial decision but the fact I allowed it to be so close was my downfall. I\u2019ll use that disappointment for this fight, though – it\u2019s fuelled the fire.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n The fire that Collins mentions has driven him to train harder over recent weeks than he\u2019s ever done previously. This time, the Scot, who is undefeated as a professional, is under no illusions as to quite how severe a test Cristobal will pose second time around and that he will need to be on top form to ensure he records his eighteenth professional win. He is, though, in no doubt that he will remove any element of doubt from the outcome this time around.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI’m confident of winning this one,\u201d says Collins.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis time, I’m going to make sure there’ll be no uncertainty in the decision.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI won\u2019t necessarily be going for a knockout or stoppage, actually quite the opposite. Last time, I felt like I was cruising to victory but then I tried to go for the knockout and that was my problem. The game plan went out the window and I was just trying to finish him whereas this time, if I just stick to my plan, the knockout might come but if it doesn’t I’m just happy comfortably boxing to victory.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Tonight’s bout will be Collins\u2019 second outing at the Hydro, but first as the headliner. With such a status comes expectation but Collins seems refreshingly oblivious to the pressure that now rests upon his shoulders. And while he knows it will be a rowdy, to say the least, crowd on fight night, he\u2019s conscious of not getting caught up in the atmosphere whilst, at the same time, appreciating that he\u2019s become, slowly but surely, one of the biggest names in Scottish boxing.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHeadlining the Hydro is absolutely crazy – it\u2019s what every Glaswegian boxer aspires to,\u201d he says.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt’s hitting me that the guys who I looked up to when I was young, I’m becoming one of them.\n<\/p>\n
\n “Normally I take the atmosphere and the noise in but this time, I’ll try and block it out a bit more.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIn my last fight, the crowd set me off and I wasn’t as calm as I normally am but this time, I’ll have a cooler head on me.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI’ve been boxing near enough my whole life and it’s taken me so, so long to get to the stage of headlining the Hydro – and there were points I thought I wasn’t ever going to get here. So I do sometimes have to pinch myself knowing that I\u2019m actually here now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everything is pointing to Collins being Scotland’s next boxing superstar yet, currently, he can go about his daily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-609671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=609671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}