Rising middleweight Jimmy Sains makes an important step up when he challenges for the vacant English title on Friday night.
Sains, 24, takes on Troy Coleman at Bethnal Green’s York Hall. The bout is the chief support to his stablemate George Liddard challenging Kieron Conway for the British and Commonwealth titles in the same division.
“It’s exciting. I’ve always said I wanted to do the traditional route, from the Southern Area, English, British, Commonwealth, all the way through up to world titles,” said Sains. “I’ve ticked off Southern Area, so now I’m looking forward to ticking off the English as well.”
Like Liddard, Sains, 10-0 (9 KOs), is trained by Tony Sims in a busy gym that includes heavyweight Johnny Fisher, light heavyweight Craig Richards and welterweight Conor Benn.
“Everyone in here is all good lads,” said Sains. “Tony wouldn’t have you in if you weren’t a nice geezer, do you know what I mean? But, yeah, we all have a good laugh. [Former super middleweight contender] John Ryder takes the piss out of all of us!
“But when it comes down to it, we’re all serious and we get the work done. And we all bring each other on as well. See, on the runs, in the sparring, we all push each other to improve.”
The quiet impact of Ryder is not to be downplayed.
While Sims has earned his respect through years of working with champions, Ryder in recent times went the distance with Canelo Alvarez and but for a controversial decision defeat to Callum Smith might have reigned as lineal super middleweight champion.
“Obviously, I sparred [Ryder] when I was first down in the gym,” Sains added. “I used to spar with John Ryder all the time. He used to always catch me with the uppercut, he used to drive me nuts. I’ve seen him at a top level as a fighter. Now he’s transitioned well into a coach; you’re going to listen to everything he says because he has been there and done all of it. He’s fought Canelo in Guadalajara, Mexico. He’s boxed in Las Vegas. He's boxed everywhere, all over the world. So he’s been there. You can’t get a better definition of been there and done it.
“Sometimes I do pads with John as well, mixing in on Tuesday or Thursday. But it’s just also good to get someone’s different angle, a different view on what someone else is looking at. John might find something that Tony doesn’t see, where you’re falling short, leaving your hands low, or something like that, something different. Tony might see something different to John, so it’s just good to get two points of view.”
While the lion’s share of his work is done with Sims, Ryder is an ample deputy.
“I know boxing’s an individual sport, but we are like a team down here. We all get on really well,” Sains added. “We all train hard together, all push each other. It’s good when we’re all fighting around similar times. “Training camp, all on the early mornings together. So yeah, it’s a good buzz in the gym at the minute.”
He spars often with Liddard, and has racked up rounds with Benn, too.
Liddard, it is said, is a year ahead of Sains in their respective journeys.
“Well, I mean, he's fighting for the British and Commonwealth, I suppose so,” Sains explained. “But he turned pro probably around a year before I did, even though he’s only had, two or three more fights than I have. I mean, he’s at a British level. I’m probably just underneath that at the minute. But the English title is going to probably get my ranking up there and to push towards them titles.”
The promoters, managers – and Sims – will be hoping that by the time Sains gets to British level, Liddard will be at European.
“I suppose that's the plan. Yeah, that's the plan. Pass them [British and Commonwealth titles] over to me, maybe. But we’ll see. We’re good mates, obviously. We [he and Liddard] spar all the time, we train together all the time and we’re a team down here, so we don’t want to be fighting each other.”
A domestic scene that includes Denzel Bentley, Brad Pauls and Nathan Heaney is competitive, and the journey to the top will be difficult.
“To win a British title, I don’t think there are going to be no easy fights,” Sains admitted. “Every fight is going to be a 50-50 and they’re going to be a hard fight. It’s all good fights. No easy fights there, I don’t think.”
But Sains is not perturbed by a bit of competition. He came through the amateur ranks at the prestigious Repton in London’s East End.
“I absolutely loved it down there,” he recalled. “I love going back there now. [There’s] just a different buzz. Only people from Repton really know that buzz. But I love it down in Repton.
“The sparring is incredible down there, I think it's so good. Every time you're sparring, it's a fight. It's so competitive. There's so many boys in the same weight. Everyone just brings each other on so much and it just breeds success.”
During Covid, when Sains was 18 or 19, the amateur clubs were shut but Sims managed to utilize him for sparring with Benn and his former junior middleweight Ted Cheeseman.
“They absolutely smashed the life out of me,” Sains smiles now. “But Tony must have seen something in me, I suppose. And I kept coming back down. And then from then, the amateur gyms opened up. So I was doing a couple of days a week with Tony, a couple of days a week down Repton as well, which obviously brought me on leaps and bounds to where I am today.”
But like many young pros, Sains knows what he needs to work on. Doing 10 rounds with Gideon Onyenani in May showed him he needed to develop his inside game, and he’s specifically worked with Ryder on that.
And there’s a buzz in the gym, with Benn, Fisher and others all with upcoming dates. Benn, of course, has his highly-anticipated rematch with Chris Eubank Jnr in November.
“The first fight was such a great fight,” Sains recalled. “I think the build-up of this fight is going to be even bigger, probably. But yeah, when Conor’s down there [at the gym], when he's in camp, he’s really focused, he’s zoned in. So it just makes everyone else more focused and zoned in.”
Tris Dixon covered his first amateur boxing fight in 1996. The former editor of Boxing News, he has written for a number of international publications and newspapers, including GQ and Men’s Health, and is a board member for the Ringside Charitable Trust and the Ring of Brotherhood. He has been a broadcaster for TNT Sports and hosts the popular “Boxing Life Stories” podcast. Dixon is a British Boxing Hall of Famer, an International Boxing Hall of Fame elector, a BWAA award winner, and is the author of five boxing books, including “Damage: The Untold Story of Brain Trauma in Boxing” (shortlisted for the William Hill Sportsbook of the Year), “Warrior: A Champion’s Search for His Identity” (shortlisted for the Sunday Times International Sportsbook of the Year) and “The Road to Nowhere: A Journey Through Boxing’s Wastelands.” You can reach him @trisdixon on X and Instagram.
