“It’s alright, to be fair,” says Cameron Vuong, readjusting the screen he is using for a succession of zoom interviews during a media day. “I don’t mind it. It’s easy, really, once you forget about the camera.”
Vuong is not the retiring sort. He’s an 8-0 (4 KOs) prospect with a fast mouth who is being matched equally rapidly, and so rattling off a few interviews and talking about his career thus far is neither here nor there.
Originally from Blyth, England, the 23-year-old, known as “The One”, scored the most impressive win of his career in March when stopping rival Jordan Flynn in seven rounds.
Before that, at the end of 2024, he seemed fortunate to take a decision over experienced Welshman Gavin Gwynne.
He has subsequently moved from being trained by Jamie Moore to work with Ben Davison at the Essex coach’s Performance Centre.
“It’s just another level down here, really,” Vuong says.
“Every day I come in the gym, I feel like I’m training under pressure and I feel like I’m improving every day, the little one per cents. The changes that have been made to my style, to me as a fighter, I feel like is massive. I’ve made massive changes the past five months and I feel like I’m a whole new fighter, so I just can’t wait to showcase it now on September 6th and get in there. I’ve really dedicated my life to the sport this summer and I’ve been down here since April, every day, day in, day out. I can’t wait to fight and show everyone what I’ve been working on.”
Vuong faces well-travelled Argentine journeyman Requen Facundo Arce on Saturday in Houghton-le-Spring keen to show the fruits of his labor.
“There’s a lot of things, but I think before I was sort of half-freestyling and just, you know, doing anything and working using a lot of instinct, but I think since I’ve came here it’s given us a lot. It’s given us sort of a path and I feel like the work I’m doing is a lot more specific, a lot more suited.”
Davison is keen for his fighters to build their own identities as boxers, and Vuong has time on his side to do that, having been a pro for less than two years.
“It’s just certain styles. I just think I’m very young, obviously new into the professional game,” the fighter adds. “I’ve had a couple of hard fights early on in my career for being a prospect and I just feel like there were certain areas in my game that needed improving. Otherwise, I would have ended up getting found out and that’s why I came here, was to improve those areas of my game. I came here for certain reasons and I’m very happy with my decision.”
Vuong has been matched tough for a youngster. The respected Gwynne was a former European champion. Vuong admits he might have been moved aggressively because his fighting talk demands it, but he also has belief in his abilities to make the right jumps in class at the right time.
“That might be part of it [how he talks] but I always said I believe in my skill set, I believe in my skills and I don’t want to fight all these guys with loads of padded records,” he explains. “So I think it’s just belief from my team as well. At the time, I had people around us who believed in us. I believe in my own skill set and I’ve never said no or turned down a fight in my life. So as soon as these names got put to us, I said ‘yes.’”
And Vuong realizes matchmaking is part of the journey, and that he should be faced with different styles of fighters, different shapes and sizes with different degrees of ambition.
“I’m sure I'll tick all them boxes in due time,” he states. “But listen, my job is to get in there and fight and it’s Ben Davison and [manager] Sam Jones’s job to decide on the opponents and decide who to put us in there with. I’m just there to turn up and fight.”
The Flynn bout was a high-stakes contest in which Vuong looked good, but he was not content with how he performed despite the stoppage win.
“I wasn’t very satisfied at all really,” he explains. “I think I started the fight very poorly the first two, three rounds but then once I relaxed into it, obviously you’ve seen what happened. I got him out of there. But no, I wasn’t happy with my performance. I feel like I never really am, I’m just that sort of person. Boxing is a sport where you have to strive for perfection and perfection is never going to be achieved so it’s just one of them things.”
Asked about being prepared to utilise fighting talk to get beneath the skin of his opponents, Vuong considers whether it adds additional pressure to him to perform.
“I put pressure on myself so I don’t really care about the pressure from anyone else,” he goes on. “At the end of the day, it’s me who's got to put my head on the pillow and sleep at night so as long as I’m happy with what I’ve done, then I’m happy. The pressure from everyone else doesn’t really compare to the pressure I put on myself.”
Gwynne has been vocal in his pursuit of a rematch and Vuong is keen to run it back, too.
“A hundred per cent,” Vuong insists. “I’ve been saying that since the first fight that I want to run it back and I understand he does as well and I’m sure we will. He’s just had his fight [winning a keep-busy six-rounder), I’m having mine and we’ll get it on. Hopefully we can get it on a big card like Eubank-Benn II [in November]. It’s an all-British fight, I know the fans, the British public want to see it again so hopefully we can do it on the biggest card. I’ve watched it back 50, 60 times. It was something I was watching every day even after the fight. The night of the fight I got in the hotel and I watched it back there and then. I believe I won the fight. Yes, it was close, but I believe I won the fight by a round or two and I stand on that. I don’t think it [being close] was down to how good Gavin is, I think it was down to the poor decisions I made in there on the night and the mistakes that I made being young, being inexperienced. But listen, I’ve got that experience. I’ve been through it now. No one can take that away and I’ve learnt a hell of a lot since November 30th.”
It is often said that those challenges on a prospect’s rise improve the building fighter. Vuong is sure that is the case for him.
“It showed I’ve got balls and I’m not a jacker and I would never jack on the stool and I also think it speaks a lot for me as a prospect,” Vuong says. “There’s a lot of prospects in this stable and other stables that wouldn’t dare take fights like that and I’m not going to name names but these fighters just want to get in there, look great and keep knocking over garden gnomes – but that’s not what I’m here to do. I’m here to learn. I want to be a complete fighter and I want to get to that world level. I don’t care how long it takes, as long as I get there then I’ve done my job.”
