The 20 year-old from Derby steps up to meet former amateur star Simon O’Donnell on promoter Spencer Fearon’s show in Bethnal Green on Friday, October 7 – and it promises to be the pick of the undercard fights.
Ty Mitchell has shown in his previous four fights that he’s a box of tricks who can bang. He has quick fists – often leads with his back hand – good reflexes, switches stances smoothly and then there’s his secret weapon.
So far, two of his four opponents have been knocked out – and nobody apart from Mitchell himself knows how they ended up on the floor.
Ty was being pressed back to the ropes by both Bobby Wood and Darren McKenna in their fights – and then bang ! The fight was over - and Ty was the winner.
“Ty has got a punch that nobody sees,” said father, trainer and manager Clifton Mitchell, the former heavyweight contender. “I call it his phantom punch. I didn’t show him how to throw it because I don’t know how he does it !
“It’s a lightning-fast right hand that he throws at the same time his opponent throws a punch and that’s why nobody sees it.
“Nobody saw the punches that knocked out Wood and McKenna. I had to watch the DVD several times before I spotted them.
“The knock-out punches didn’t travel any distance and you couldn’t see where they were coming from.
“Nobody can teach what Ty has. He’s a natural and I just to improve what he’s got.”
Ty has been around boxing gyms all his life.
Clifton, who boxed for the British and European heavyweight titles, took him to the gym with him when he was four years old and explained why he took the fight with O’Donnell, a former amateur clubmate of George Groves and James DeGale who has won nine of 10 fights as a professional.
“We don’t really need to take the fight,” he admitted. “Ty is a baby and I have to hold him back. But it’s an opportunity for him to box in the spotlight.”
The bill will be shown on Premier Sports and that gives Ty the chance to show fight fans the skills they should have seen in ‘Prizefighter’ in March.
He was pencilled in for the super-middleweight event, but defeat to Lee Duncan over four rounds meant he missed out.
“That did Ty the world of good,” said Clifton. “Only a fighter knows what it’s like to sit in that dressing room after you’ve lost and you know you messed it up yourself. It feels like there’s been a bereavement. That’s the only way I can describe it.
“He will get his chance again. I would put Ty in ‘Prizefighter’ at middleweight or super middleweight.”
Clifton says the target is to get Ty boxing like Floyd Mayweather jnr.
“Ty just has to learn how to deal with pressure from bigger opponents,” said Clifton. “If you stand off Ty, he will pick you apart and I want him to be more comfortable under pressure like Mayweather is.”
Mitchell’s stablemate, Dave Ryan, meets Darren Hamilton in a rematch for the British Masters light-welterweight championship.