Lightweight contender George ‘Ferocious’ Kambosos Jr 18-0 (10) is confident he will have the measure of former IBF featherweight champion Lee Selby 28-2 (9) Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, Wales on October 3.
The 27-year-old from Sydney, Australia has never been short of confidence and says a sparring session with Selby in Los Angeles a number of years ago has only bolstered his belief that he will win.
“Selby and me sparred years ago, about three or four years ago,” Kambosos told Fightnews. “At Freddie Roach’s Wild Card gym. Four rounds. I had him running for his life. Every time I touched him, he was shaking in his boots.
“That was three or four years ago now. I am one hundred times faster and stronger now and more experienced. That is before I did 250 rounds with Manny Pacquiao. I am a different beast now to when I sparred Selby.
“If he thought he had a bit of trouble back then, this is a whole different beast. Faster, more explosive, just a savage.”
Kambosos is coming off a 10-round split decision win over former world champion Mickey Bey at Madison Square Garden in New York last December.
“Mickey Bey was a very experienced fighter,” he said. “He was with Mayweather for fifteen years. He was schooled by the Mayweather Team. Floyd’s second world champion. His credentials are massive. He was the world lightweight champion not the world featherweight champion like Selby.
“To be honest I feel Mickey Bey is better than Selby. We are already on track for a massive win. I am focused on Lee Selby being in front of me and I know I am going to do the business.
“I am going to get rid of him. No disrespect. I respect he is a former world champion and he had a lot of defences at featherweight, but this is a different time and a different era. This is a new generation. It’s my time, not his.”
The fight between Kambosos and Selby is an official IBF world title eliminator with the winner becoming the mandatory challenger to the champion Teofimo Lopez 15-0 (12).
Lopez is scheduled to face pound-for-pound level fighter and WBA and WBO 135-pound champion Vasiliy Lomachenko 14-1 (10) at ‘The Bubble’ at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada on October 17.
Kambosos is confident he can face the winner on home soil.
“I will be the mandatory to the winner of the Lomachenko v Lopez and if you have heard Bob Arum over the past few weeks and a few times last year as well, he wants to bring Kambosos v Lomachenko to Australia,” he said.
“All the unified titles in my weight division. Lomachenko wants to come to Australia. Everything is in a line. Obviously, we have to do our job and Lomachenko has to do his job.
“It’s not an easy ask for Lomachenko as Lopez is a great young fighter but I think Loma will do the business. That’s it. There will be nothing holding it back.
“The Kambosos v Lomachenko will be the biggest fight in Australian boxing history. It will be bigger than Pacquiao v Horn. The biggest fight ever in Australia.
“I haven’t fought in Australia for four years, so to come back to fight in Australia after earning my stripes overseas in America and Greece.
“Fighting former world champions and earning it the hard way. To come back and fight the world’s pound-for-pound best for all the belts. That is Australia’s biggest fight. I will shock the world.”
Kambosos sees himself as the bigger man against Selby who has fought just twice at the weight, most recently a 12-round majority decision over two-weight world champion Ricky Burns last October.
“I am bigger, stronger and more explosive than Selby,” he said. “I have been working very hard during this COVID period.
“Physically the way I am punching hard. I am really coming into my prime now. I am 27 years of age. I am confident I will KO Selby inside the distance.”
