There’s a nervousness and excitement about Lee Cutler.

The hard work for the biggest fight of his career has been done, and now he is more than enthused to show it on Sunday when he meets tried-and-tested warrior Sam Eggington at the Resorts World Arena in Birmingham, England.

He is at the point of fight week where everything else needs to be finished but the ring walk.

And while he is familiar with how it all goes, this week is slightly different.

Coming off taking the “0” of Irish contender Stevie McKenna – a superb fight for which Cutler was the underdog in December – Cutler goes in against Eggington as the man, for plenty of fans, on the upward trajectory.

Cutler, 29, understands that, too. He understands the pressure is greater, that he is closer to his goals and that he will soon have the most formidable foe of his career across the ring from him.

“I definitely feel it’s changed this time,” said Cutler, a 15-1 (7 KOs) junior middleweight from Bournemouth, England. “I’ve got a lot more expectation on me this time. I think going into this, I believe this is a much harder fight than the McKenna fight and I’m going in favorite, where I was such a big underdog in that fight. So, yeah, I’ve just got so much more expectation on me. But you’ve got to deal with that when you’re a boxer at this level.”

Cutler is no stranger to seeing the stakes in the sport at their highest. At McGuigan’s Gym – where he trains with former pro Josh Pritchard alongside Cutler’s close friend, former cruiserweight titleholder Chris Billam-Smith, and a host of top talent including Ellie Scotney, Caroline Dubois and Adam Azim – he has seen top professionals deal with the burden of similar expectation.

“When you’ve got a stable full of athletes like we have and the people deal with this on a day-to-day, from Adam, Caroline, Chris, Ellie, it’s just full of them,” Cutler said. “So we all just bounce off each other and get through it.”

With Billam-Smith fighting just six days later, on April 26, their camps have run parallel, and that has helped both.

“The last couple of camps, we haven’t been in camp together, obviously,” Cutler said. “We live together when we’re up here [in London, where they train]. So Chris will come up for a few days and then he’ll be going home for a while. And the same as me when I haven’t been in camp. It’s nice that we’re both pretty much on the same time, bar a week. So it’s good to have your mate around and you’re both going through the same things, with food, dieting and all that stuff.”

Eggington, 31, is one of British boxing’s great servants. He is 35-9 (29 KOs) and has been in several Fight of the Year contenders. The last time he fought a bright hope from the South Coast of England, Eggington stopped undefeated Joe Pigford in five rounds. That was in the summer of 2023, and Cutler fought and won on the same bill.

But while Cutler and the aforementioned McKenna had plenty of needle ahead of their fight at the tail end of last year, he and Eggington share mutual respect and there has been little animosity.
Eggington has seen it all, anyway, and won’t be riled. And although the fights will catch up with him at some point, there has been no indication that the time is now.

“He’s still young, so he obviously looks after himself outside of boxing,” Cutler said.

“He seems like a decent family man and he must just look after his body outside [of boxing],” Cutler said. “The people that seem to ‘go’ are the ones that abuse their body on the outside. But he seems to be coming in [in shape] fight after fight, and fight after fight he’s in great fights and he’s still there. I’m expecting a really tough fight.”

There is an anticipation for excitement. Some might suggest the best tactic against Eggington is to box and not get drawn in.

“I want it to be exciting,” Cutler said.
“That’s the main thing. We’ve got a game plan, but it’s going to be exciting one way or another. The fight is going to catch the light at some stage. There’s 10 rounds, so at some stage there will be a war.”

By that point, any talk of pressure will be replaced by a beating heart, sweat and a determination to win the fight that could become a pitched battle.

Beforehand, however, there will be quiet moments when Cutler will have to control the pressure and the anxiety. 

“For this fight, definitely, I feel that pressure because I’m touching distance from my goals now, which is to headline at home [in Bournemouth],” he said. “Win some really big titles and then push on and do something in the sport. And I feel like I’m touching distance from that. Going into a tough fight like this against Sam, where I am a favorite and there’s a lot of expectation on my shoulders, I do feel that pressure. But like I said, it’s something that comes part and parcel with the boxing. When you start performing well, like I did against McKenna, people start expecting a little bit more from you. I’ve just got to expect that and get the job done and do what we’ve been working on in the gym. And if I can do that on the night, I believe I’ll get the job done.”

If Cutler is able to pick up from where he left off against McKenna and add Eggington’s name to his ledger, he will be well-placed to enter the world rankings, should Boxxer push his case – although it is the dream to box in Bournemouth that remains his greatest motivation. 

“I haven't thought past Sam, to be honest,” Cutler said. “My main goal is to headline, get Sky Sports going down to Bournemouth. And if you’re headlining, you’ve got to be in some sort of decent fight, especially on a big platform like Sky. [But] I’m not really focused on who or what’s next. I just, I know with a headline, you’re going to be in a decent fight and for some sort of decent title. But I need to get through Sam before any of that can happen.”

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, is on The Ring ratings panel 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.