Atang, 19, is hoping to extend his unbeaten start to his professional career, currently boasting a 6-0 record with five knockouts to his name.
The heavyweight perhaps had his toughest challenge yet in his last fight, beating Viktar Chvarkou by a points decision in what was the first fight of his career where he didn’t win by knockout.
Atang has taken the lessons from that fight and hopes to put them into practice when he locks horns with French boxer Fouad Shaili on Saturday, June 6 at the Utilita Arena in Sheffield.
“I’ve had the perfect start really to my pro career,” Atang told The Press.
“Five knockouts, six wins, I’m ready to put on another big performance and get back on the KO train.
“He’s going to come for me and he’s giving most people hard fights, he’s coming off of the back of two wins as well.
“He’s coming into it in good form and I’m looking forward to hopefully putting on a performance against him.
“We’ve been doing a lot of work, getting the rounds in.
“We’re taking the things we want to take from the last fight, showing it in the spars and we’ve talked about it during rounds and when hitting the pads.
“It’ll all come together, we keep it the same as always but whilst looking to improve as well.
“It is fairly similar with fitness and structure work, for takeaways, there’s always stuff we can improve on.
“We want to improve what we’ve already got as well, so that’s the only thing that really changes.”
That fight against Chvarkou ended in a 59-54 score after Atang went six rounds for his first time in his career.
Atang had previously defeated Dan Garber, Amine Boucetta, Baba Yusuf, Cristian Uwaka and Milen Paunov by knockout in his previous five bouts.
Rather than linger on the end of his knockout streak, Atang is focusing on the positives of his fight with Chvarkou, believing it gave him the chance to show more of his talents to the world.
Atang reflected: “It was a good learning experience, I said always that I needed the rounds and that’s what I got.
“There were plenty of things in there that I could have done better which I know about know, which is why we’ve had all of this time to work on it and come up with a better performance.
“It’s good early in your career, I’ve had a lot of early stoppages so I haven’t necessarily been able to announce myself and show people what I can do.
“It’s good to get the rounds in, and it’s almost reassuring for me as well.”
Atang fights on the undercard of Josh Padley versus Aqib Fiaz in Sheffield, a battle he can’t wait to see unfold in the ring.
Padley is a fellow Yorkshireman, from Doncaster, with Atang vocal in his respect for the fighter: “He’s been in with the best.
“He’s willing to get in the ring with anyone, he took that defeat, but now he’s trying to climb up the ladder.
“That’ll be a good fight, Fiaz as well, I know both of them and I’m looking forward to watching that fight.
“I’m really excited to be back in Yorkshire too, it’ll be a big atmosphere at a great venue, so it’ll be really good.
“Hopefully I can impress everyone.”
Atang is a product of Legion’s Boxing Gym, and is trained by Head Coach Ashley Martin.
Martin is expecting a different form of opponent in Shaili against Atang, believing the French boxer, who has a record of 5-4-2, will look to stifle the York fighter’s usual game.
Martin assessed: “I think that knowing the type of opponent that we’ve got, he’s someone that will put a lot of pressure on Leo.
“He’ll try and be a bit of a spoiler by being on top of Leo, he’ll try and stop Leo from getting his work off.
“From his last fight, he had someone who spoiled it in a way by being very negative and hard to pin down, but this is someone who will be very aggressive and hard to get off of you.
“It’ll be good to see, Leo has to not let his work get smothered, and work at a distance that suits him, work at a distance that suits the style needed to win the fight.
“He needs to put into practice everything we’ve seen, everything we need to do and everything that we’ve worked on from the last fight.”
In the early stages of a boxer’s professional career, Head Coaches like Martin have the challenge of being adaptable from the corner.
Martin will have to be ready to pass on any knowledge he can when viewing Atang’s fight with Shaili, admitting it is hard to do any research on an opponent who has little footage in the public eye.
It’s something Martin is prepared for, adding: “If we’re against a boxing journeyman who has had a lot of fights, there will probably be footage of him boxing.
“The guy Leo is boxing in two weeks has one video of him boxing, and the guy that he is boxing, boxes nothing like Leo.
“You take from it what you can, and be realistic that you are potentially going to have to make adaptations during the fight.
“What we’ve seen and what we’ve been able to prepare for might be different to what we see on fight night.
“We like to set a game plan, we have to be ready to adapt.
“This is where an extensive amateur career could be massive with what Leo got, he’s been in multiple tournaments where one day after the next, he’s got a different style of opponent.
“You’ve got to adapt more, sometimes you don’t even know what you’re opponent looks like until you get in the ring with them.
“We don’t know what this French guy is going to bring, but whatever it is, we’ll make sure that Leo is sharp enough to be able to face anything.
“Whether he has to go on the front foot, the back foot, whether he has to stand and fight or box off his jab, he’s able to do it all well.
“It’s a case of what we get on the night, we’ll be faced with.”
For those wanting tickets to the fight, you can find more information at @atang_tickets on Instagram.