BOURNEMOUTH, England \u2013 Lee Cutler believes his gymmate Adam Azim could be considered a pound-for pound star in the future.<\/p>\n
Cutler boxes on Zuffa\u2019s inaugural UK show in Bournemouth, against Aaron Sutton up at middleweight on Saturday night, in Cutler\u2019s hometown.<\/p>\n
The bill is topped by the cruiserweight bout between Chris Billam-Smith and Ryan Rozicki.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnbelievable performance,\u201d Cutler, 15-2 (7 KOs), said of Azim defeating Steve Claggett in three rounds last weekend. \u201cWe see him in the gym and what he\u2019s like every week and he\u2019s just getting better. He\u2019s so big and strong for the weight. I\u2019m really looking forward to him hopefully picking up a world title soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does he think the gifted junior welterweight can get amongst the rankings as one of the world\u2019s best fighters?<\/p>\n
\u201cDefinitely, he\u2019s got the size, he can fill into the weight if he does move up in weight eventually after getting a couple of super lightweight world titles, and he can move up and then he\u2019ll be there, I believe it. As long as he stays focused and on the trajectory that he\u2019s on it on, I think he will be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cutler is trained by Josh Pritchard, who works alongside Shane McGuigan. The gym also boasts the likes of Malik Zinad, Ellie Scotney, and Caroline Dubois.
Cutler has not boxed since his disputed stoppage loss to Sam Eggington in April last year. He chased the rematch with the now-retired Eggington, and had been due to box in January but suffered a niggle in training and that fight was shelved.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been positive [having the time to learn in the gym] but I\u2019m 30 now so I wanted to crack on,\u201d he said. \u201cI wanted to get that rematch which never happened, which was very frustrating for me at the time, but it\u2019s just life. You get these obstacles chucked at you and everything happens for a reason and now I\u2019m signed into Zuffa and they\u2019ve promised me activity and with the other promotions, they promise you that activity. They want you to win and then you win and then you could be out again for another year or eight months or whatever. But in my contract with Zuffa, as long as I keep winning, they\u2019re going to promise me activity and that\u2019s what I want now\u00a0\u2013 with my age.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is clearly a significant appeal for the security that Zuffa offers fighters in Cutler\u2019s position.<\/p>\n
As he makes his way through fight week, Cutler has been mightily impressed by the operation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWow, it\u2019s it is different level,\u201d he added. \u201cLike, the amount of people they\u2019ve flown over here, it\u2019s a proper little hub at the Hilton and it\u2019s just a different level to any promotion that I\u2019ve been around before.\u201d<\/p>\n
But, as he alluded to, he must keep winning to enjoy the benefits and that starts with Bristol\u2019s Chris Sanigar-trained Aaron Sutton, 19-2 (3 KOs), who he faces on Saturday at the BIC<\/p>\n
Cutler had heard little about Sutton before, only really the fact he\u2019s a similar weight and doesn\u2019t live too far away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard good things about him,\u201d said the Bournemouth man. \u201cThe only thing you can watch really online is the fight with George Liddard, which you can\u2019t take much from because George is a very good fighter [Sutton was stopped in five rounds] \u2013 I\u2019ve done lots of rounds with George myself \u2013 so I know he\u2019s a very good fighter and he\u2019s at the top of the domestic scene at middleweight. It\u2019s my first fight in middleweight so it\u2019s a good yardstick to see where I am in that division.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also on the Bournemouth bill is Irishman Stevie McKenna, who faces Casey James Streeter, and who incidentally lost a good fight to Cutler in December 2024 over 10 rounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to talk too much about him yet but there is a there\u2019s a few whispers [about a rematch] but I\u2019m focused on Saturday night first, because anything can happen in a fight,\u201d Cutler added. \u201cEveryone\u2019s got two arms, two legs and a chin and anything\u2019s possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two have consistently exchanged with one another on social media since their bout, keeping the flames of their feud alive.<\/p>\n
Cutler, however, is delighted to be back fighting in front of his home fans having boxed on the road in Liverpool and Birmingham in his last two fights, and he knows that if his friend for the last couple of decades, Billam-Smith, is victorious, there is scope for them to keep building in Bournemouth.<\/p>\n
He appreciates that Billam-Smith has a potentially tough fight ahead of him, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor sure,\u201d Cutler agreed of the main event. \u201cI\u2019ll never bet against Chris now. There\u2019s a few times when I wasn\u2019t in the gym and I didn\u2019t see what he was like. I do know him from the amateurs and we were close as friends but I\u2019ve never seen him day-to-day. He looks like he\u2019s got a tough opponent. But I think Chris is too much and has been at this level far too long to allow someone like Ryan Rozicki to upset him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOURNEMOUTH, England \u2013 Lee Cutler believes his gymmate Adam Azim could be considered a pound-for pound star in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,711,710,49,48,101350,258767,82],"class_list":["post-714172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxingscene","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chris-billam-smith","tag-lee-cutler","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714172","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=714172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}