We knew Jeff was the missing link

This will be my first fight with Jeff as my head trainer.

My past four fights have been really frustrating to me more so than anyone, but also for my dad and family, because they know how good I am and they know something hasn’t been quite right.

We hadn’t been really able to put our finger on it. I would have thoughts in the gym down at Miranda that maybe it’s not for me, maybe I’ve gone as far as I can and perhaps I should get into the family earthmoving business.

I sat down with dad and had a conversation with him about six months ago. I asked his honest advice and he said I can always get into the family business, that I’ve worked really hard for a lot of years and I had to find out the reasons why things didn’t feel right and make the tough decisions.

When the Fenech opportunity came up and we went out and had a session with him, we knew that was the missing link. A change is like a holiday and all the questions were basically answered and all the frustration over the past couple of years was pretty much released instantly.

I’ve watched a few of his fights recently and they’re the Marrickville Mauler. I love his style. I think me and him as fighter and coach are really a perfect match.

He’s given me a fresh start of enthusiasm, and high energy. I thrive on high energy, and being in a gym with other professional fighters all thriving.

He’s full of enthusiasm, smart and he’s been in the ring. He knows what it takes to win.

We know with Tszyu we have a big task in front of us but I’ve shown how much improvement I can make and we know we can win the fight.

The last piece of the puzzle

I’m known as the most entertaining fighter in Australia. I’m quite smart, I have a great boxing brain but I tend to lean on my toughness more than I need to.

It’s been good to have that brute strength and mongrel inside of me but if it’s to come together I’m going to have to start using my boxing brain.

I’m feeling the move up to fight at super welterweight is a good one for me. It feels like my natural weight. The key will be to get some nutritional advice to do the weight a bit smarter than I’ve done it in the past.

I’m looking forward to just eating and having the energy to train and not having the stress of getting that weight cut off.

For me, it’s the last piece of the puzzle. I started boxing as a bit of a hobby, and found I was naturally good at it and got to this world class level. Suddenly I’m getting to realise the importance of diet.

I saw a nutritionist after my last fight because I hadn’t felt myself. When I told them what I ate on fight day, they said if I could have given you a list of things not to eat on fight day, this would be it.

During the fight I felt heavy and bloated, my gut was really, really full and straight after the fight I went into the change room and spewed two litres of water into a bucket. All that extra water was sitting in my gut making me heavy and slow.

I’m learning plenty, especially now Jeff is training me.

He can definitely be intense. There are  two different Jeffs. The Jeff when you get into full training and there’s the Jeff you get after training, where’s he got a great sense of humour and likes to laugh and he’s one of the boys.

As soon as training starts, the coin flips and it’s just serious. Everything’s about boxing, everything has purpose, there’s no jokes about the training, what we’re doing, until the gloves come off and then the character Jeff comes out.