\n 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.\n<\/p>\n
\n 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\u2019t win by knockout.\n<\/p>\n
\n 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.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019ve had the perfect start really to my pro career,\u201d Atang told The Press.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cFive knockouts, six wins, I\u2019m ready to put on another big performance and get back on the KO train.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe\u2019s going to come for me and he\u2019s giving most people hard fights, he\u2019s coming off of the back of two wins as well.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe\u2019s coming into it in good form and I\u2019m looking forward to hopefully putting on a performance against him.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing a lot of work, getting the rounds in.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re taking the things we want to take from the last fight, showing it in the spars and we\u2019ve talked about it during rounds and when hitting the pads.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019ll all come together, we keep it the same as always but whilst looking to improve as well.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt is fairly similar with fitness and structure work, for takeaways, there\u2019s always stuff we can improve on.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe want to improve what we\u2019ve already got as well, so that\u2019s the only thing that really changes.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n That fight against Chvarkou ended in a 59-54 score after Atang went six rounds for his first time in his career.\n<\/p>\n
\n Atang had previously defeated Dan Garber, Amine Boucetta, Baba Yusuf, Cristian Uwaka and Milen Paunov by knockout in his previous five bouts.\n<\/p>\n
\n 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.\n<\/p>\n
\n Atang reflected: \u201cIt was a good learning experience, I said always that I needed the rounds and that\u2019s what I got.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere were plenty of things in there that I could have done better which I know about know, which is why we\u2019ve had all of this time to work on it and come up with a better performance.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s good early in your career, I\u2019ve had a lot of early stoppages so I haven\u2019t necessarily been able to announce myself and show people what I can do.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s good to get the rounds in, and it\u2019s almost reassuring for me as well.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Atang fights on the undercard of Josh Padley versus Aqib Fiaz in Sheffield, a battle he can\u2019t wait to see unfold in the ring.\n<\/p>\n
\n Padley is a fellow Yorkshireman, from Doncaster, with Atang vocal in his respect for the fighter: \u201cHe\u2019s been in with the best.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe\u2019s willing to get in the ring with anyone, he took that defeat, but now he\u2019s trying to climb up the ladder.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThat\u2019ll be a good fight, Fiaz as well, I know both of them and I\u2019m looking forward to watching that fight.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m really excited to be back in Yorkshire too, it\u2019ll be a big atmosphere at a great venue, so it\u2019ll be really good.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHopefully I can impress everyone.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Atang is a product of Legion\u2019s Boxing Gym, and is trained by Head Coach Ashley Martin.\n<\/p>\n
\n 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\u2019s usual game.\n<\/p>\n
\n Martin assessed: \u201cI think that knowing the type of opponent that we\u2019ve got, he\u2019s someone that will put a lot of pressure on Leo.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe\u2019ll try and be a bit of a spoiler by being on top of Leo, he\u2019ll try and stop Leo from getting his work off.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cFrom 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.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019ll 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.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe needs to put into practice everything we\u2019ve seen, everything we need to do and everything that we\u2019ve worked on from the last fight.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n In the early stages of a boxer\u2019s professional career, Head Coaches like Martin have the challenge of being adaptable from the corner.\n<\/p>\n
\n Martin will have to be ready to pass on any knowledge he can when viewing Atang\u2019s fight with Shaili, admitting it is hard to do any research on an opponent who has little footage in the public eye.\n<\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s something Martin is prepared for, adding: \u201cIf we\u2019re against a boxing journeyman who has had a lot of fights, there will probably be footage of him boxing.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe guy Leo is boxing in two weeks has one video of him boxing, and the guy that he is boxing, boxes nothing like Leo.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou take from it what you can, and be realistic that you are potentially going to have to make adaptations during the fight.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhat we\u2019ve seen and what we\u2019ve been able to prepare for might be different to what we see on fight night.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe like to set a game plan, we have to be ready to adapt.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThis is where an extensive amateur career could be massive with what Leo got, he\u2019s been in multiple tournaments where one day after the next, he\u2019s got a different style of opponent.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to adapt more, sometimes you don\u2019t even know what you\u2019re opponent looks like until you get in the ring with them.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know what this French guy is going to bring, but whatever it is, we\u2019ll make sure that Leo is sharp enough to be able to face anything.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhether he has to go on the front foot, the back foot, whether he has to stand and fight or box off his jab, he\u2019s able to do it all well.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s a case of what we get on the night, we\u2019ll be faced with.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n For those wanting tickets to the fight, you can find more information at @atang_tickets on Instagram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Atang, 19, is hoping to extend his unbeaten start to his professional career, currently boasting a 6-0 record…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-602844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}