Lewis Ritson is one fight away from competing for a world title at super-lightweight, and standing in his way is Jeremias Ponce. The Argentinian arrives in England determined to build on the impressive form he has shown in South America.
This will be Ritson's first fight since he controversially squeezed past Miguel Vazquez at the back-end of last year and he'll need to show a significant improvement to get past Ponce, which is something the Brit recently admitted even his own father told him afterwards.
“I haven’t really watched it back, but a couple of days later I went to my dad’s house and asked him if he’d watched the fight,” Ritson said. “He said yes, and I asked him to be truthful about what he thought of it. He was honest and said we got the rub of the green, we got very lucky, and we got gifted a decision, but that it is up to me whether to dwell on it or improve on it.
“That’s what we’ve done, we’ve gone away and made a few changes in camp. It was just a clash of styles. I think I was probably Vazquez’s best performance in a few years and it was one of my worst to be fair. You live and you learn, there was maybe a few things that we could have done differently in that fight. We know that now and we’ve got the experience in the bank.”
Here's everything you need to know about Lewis Ritson vs. Jeremias Ponce.
The Ritson vs. Ponce card takes place this coming Saturday, and the main bill of fights is set to commence from 19:00 local time. Main event ringwalks are anticipated on or just after 22:00 local time, though as ever with live boxing that will depend on how long the undercard runs.
Sky Sports will broadcast the fight in the UK. DAZN will screen the event in all other countries except Ireland, China, Australia and New Zealand.
The card will take place at the Vertu Motors Arena in Newcastle, where 700 fans will be in attendance.