Once upon a time in that gritty old boxing gym in Sheffield, the Prince, Naseem Hamed, told a kid, Kell Brook, that one day he too would be a champ.
Special K, as the bright-eyed youngster became known, recalls: ?Naz said he saw I could fight but also recognised that same sparkle in my eye.?
Brook fulfilled that basic prediction two years ago when he went to America and marginally outpointed Shawn Porter to win the IBF world welterweight title.
Now, if he is to make the whole fairytale come true, he has to go one better than Hamed.
He has to win the biggest, possibly the most romantic, certainly the most brutal, and ultimately the defining fight of his life.
Not only must he climb two weight divisions but he has to step above the class of any of his previous opponents if he is to defy the inhuman wrecking ball called Gennady Golovkin and became the middleweight champion of the world.
If he succeeds he will become the stuff of legend. Of Sugar Ray Robinson, his idol. Of Sugar Ray Leonard, another of his heroes. Both of whom made that perilous ascent through the poundages.
If Brook falls short this Saturday night in London, in an O2 Arena packed with a mixture of roaring British support and the curiosity of seeing Golovkin the Great live, he will suffer the same anti-climax as Hamed.
The Prince, too, was an undefeated world champion when he ventured to take on a living legend.
Mexican icon Marco Antonio Barrera inflicted upon him such a beating that our Naz was never the same again.
Fairytales can be scary, too.
