Winning British title would be a dream come true for Inverness boxer Gary Cornish
GARY Cornish admits it would be a dream come true if he won the British heavyweight title.
It was announced at the end of last week that Cornish has been booked to face Sam Sexton for the vacant title in June.
Highlander Cornish is yet to make his debut for new management team MTK Scotland – that comes this Saturday in Paisley – but inevitably, there has been a few glances ahead to his big date.
Dillian Whyte vacated the championship last month and Cornish’s new management team, headed by Sam Kynoch, managed to pull together the fight.
First Cornish must see off Georgian Revaz Karelishvili this Saturday in Paisley, before discussions with Kynoch and coach Billy Nelson to discuss his next plans.
Cornish has been slated to fight again on March 24 and potentially once more before meeting Sexton. A deadline of March 7 is in place for the fight specifics to be arranged.
There is definite excitement from the Cornish camp, given the transformation he has undergone since joining his new stable.
“Any boxer that starts boxing wants to win titles and ask any British boxer, they’ll tell you it’s their dream,” said Cornish. “To win it would be a dream come true. It’s a huge thing for me.
“There’s never been a heavyweight champion for Scotland, so it’s a chance to make history too. It’s the title I’ve always wanted.
“But I can’t think about that too much. I’ve got this fight ahead of me on Saturday and then we’ll see what happens.”
Sexton is a former Commonwealth champion and has 23 wins from his 26 fights. He has fought for this title twice before but lost on both occasions, firstly to Dereck Chisora and then to David Price. He also gives up more than 10cm in height to 29-year-old Cornish.
The Merkinch heavyweight has been full of praise for the setup at MTK, since signing at the end of December.
Cornish made the decision to down tools as a joiner, move to Glasgow and go full-time, which has certainly done him no harm.
He is dropped nearly two stone in weight, down to 17st 13, with more still to go. Working with championship-winning coach Billy Nelson, Cornish also hopes to have ironed out some flaws in his game.
“I knew myself I had a lot of flaws, as did my two coaches up in Inverness,” said Cornish. “Billy is slowing everything down and working on everything.
“I’m not far away from where I want to be in terms of my weight but we also don’t want to lose all the muscle we’ve built up.
“Billy has done a lot of preparation (for Saturday) and I’ll always listen to what he has to say. I put my trust in him.”
Cornish takes to the ring against Karelishvili as part of MTK’s ‘Impetus’ night at the Paisley Lagoon Leisure Centre. It will be The Highlander’s first bout since a points victory over Tomas Mrazek last year.
He fought just twice last year, the other coming against Kamil Sokolowski – another points victory. Those are his only bouts since defeat to Anthony Joshua in September 2015.