Frankie Gavin: If I beat Bundu then Brook and Khan have no excuses

AM: How has training been going?

FG: It’s been going well. I’m fit and have been doing 8 and 10 round spars pretty comfortably. I’ve got Nathan Brook coming down who is a lot taller than Bundu but he is a nice tidy professional boxer who is orthodox but he switches well. I am also planning to spar with the likes of Ronnie Heffron, Lewis Rees and Chad Gaynor. So some good fighters.

AM: Have you ever faced anyone with a similar style to Bundu, in terms of being a tricky southpaw?

FG: Mario Kindelan. He’s the best fighter I’ve ever fought, he’s much better than Bundu. Also Junior Witter who switches to Southpaw quite a lot and David Barnes who is a southpaw. In my opinion Vassell and Witter are better than Bundu but I’m sure people will tell me I’m wrong. Bundu will not be the best professional boxer I’ve been in with but he’s a clever boxer.

AM: How do you expect this fight to play out?

FG: It’s going to be tricky because we’re both world class operators in my eyes, we both fight differently and we both come to win. I aim to win the European title.

AM: Do you think Bundu is a ‘young’ 39 year old given that he’s not been in too many wars?

FG: It doesn’t matter, at the end of the day he’s 39. He says that he’s not been in wars but we haven’t seen all his fights. To be honest he’s been the distance a lot of times and how do we know they weren’t wars? We’ve only seen a few of his fights including the Purdy and Petrucci fights.

AM: So would you say that you have studied his fights and analysed his strengths/weaknesses?

FG: Yes I’ve studied him. He’s good but he gets hit a lot. It looks like he punches hard to the body and throws decent punches to the head, but like I said he gets hit and he is 39. He’s there to be hit. He’s got good stamina as he showed against Purdy. However, it was a close fight up until Purdy tired himself out. No disrespect to Purdy but me and Purdy are totally different level fighters. Who knows if they had a rematch Purdy might have beaten him.

AM: What specific challenges and obstacles do you expect to face in this fight?

FG: He’s tricky, he moves well and he lands nice clean shots. He’s coming to win and he will have nothing else on his mind, he will not be happy with a draw. He won’t be happy losing on points like some of my past opponents.

AM: Do you think you fight better when your opponent is at a higher level?

FG: Yes, look at my fights, it tells you that. I find it hard to respect a fighter’s ability when he’s not at a high level and it’s hard to get motivated. For example, in the Shikukutu fight I knew nothing about him and I was not motivated. After I was knocked down, which I don’t think was a knockdown, I totally took over the fight and I still wasn’t in top gear. Also against Barnes everyone thought it was going to be easy for me. The scores might say it was pretty easy but he wasn’t doing anything, he was trying to go the distance and it wasn’t easy. Also against Witter, he realised after a couple of rounds he wasn’t going to beat me so he wanted to go the distance. However, Vassell came to win and he kept on coming so I had to take him out. Vassell is a true warrior.

AM: If you beat Bundu do you expect to go straight in to a world title eliminator or maybe even a world title fight?

FG: I’m hoping that this fight will be regarded as a final eliminator, maybe for the IBF. The number one ranked fighter Brook is facing Porter. Also Bundu and I are both highly ranked. In regards to the WBO, Ushona doesn’t even want to know. Ushona wants silly money and wants me to go to Namibia, no offence but I’m not going to Namibia to fight. He didn’t even fight for the mandatory spot, he just got put there. So I hope he is removed from the number one spot if he doesn’t fight soon. I’m also WBA number 4 and I can see Mayweather vacating it. So I have a few possible routes to a world title, the IBF, WBA or WBO. If I beat Bundu I’ll also move up the WBC rankings because Bundu is ranked number 4, so all the major world title routes are an option.

AM: What specific aspects of training has your trainer Tom Chaney been focusing on for this fight?

FG: We analysed the Shikukutu fight. I was going inside and staying there. I was a bit flat footed. We’ve been working on that and working on angles, keeping my opponent at bay.

AM: Two possible future opponents for you could be Amir Khan or Kell Brook. Would you like to face either of them if they win their next fight, maybe for a world title fight?

FG: Yes, definitely. You don’t need a world title on the line to make me versus Brook or Khan. I might not be as big a name as both of them but I was a better amateur than them. I’m undefeated and bring a good record to the table. I don’t want excuses from them like “I want a world level opponent”, because I am a world level opponent and Bundu is also a world level opponent. If I beat Bundu then they’ve got no excuses. I would love to fight either of them, hopefully before Christmas.

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