Commonwealth super-middleweight champion Luke Blackledge (19-2-2) gets a tough test in the first defense of his title against Lee Markham (14-2-1) at the Manchester Arena on October 10th live on BoxNation. We caught up with Luke ahead of a massive night for his career.
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The 25-year-old will defend his belt on the bumper World War III show promoted by Frank Warren in association with Adam Booth and Top Rank, featuring three World Title fights in one unforgettable night with the history-making contest between the two travellers, WBO World middleweight champion Andy Lee (34-2-1) and challenger Billy Joe Saunders (22-0) as the highly-anticipated main event.
Massive exposure opportunity
We asked Luke how does it feel to be on such a big bill as World War III and how much he was looking forward to the occasion:
“It’s a dream come true, I’ve been asking for a big TV slot to defend my commonwealth title and been asking my manager to get me one, and he came through for me. Steve Wood has really done a good job with me.
I’ve fought in front of TV cameras before so I’ll be used to the occasion. This is obviously a big fight for me but I’m seasoned just another day at the office – and I’ve got to perform.”
Lee Markham up next
Blackledge’s next opponent Lee Markham has proven himself to be a very tough operator, none more
so than his last fight with Frank Buglioni.
We were interested to know what Blackledge thought of Markham’s biggest strengths as a fighter to which Luke replied:
“Lee Markham always comes to have a fight and always comes to win, he’s very strong with a good work rate so it should be a good fight. I’m the better fighter but he will be a good test for me.
Obviously, I’m going to stick to my game plan but with two forward fighters, it’s going to be a war. I’m fully prepared to take it there so I’m ready to do that for the full 12 rounds should it go that long. It’s going to be an interesting fight.”
Frank Buglioni
Our chat went on with Luke, where we asked him should he past Markham how a potential fight with Frank Buglioni might sit with him if the opportunity arose, and would it be a fight he’d fancy:
“To be honest, I’m not going to do what Buglioni did by talking about fighting me and calling me out all the time.
Then, he fought Markham and Markham beat him. Anyone who knows boxing, knows that Markham won that fight so I won’t be looking past Markham for now. When I do beat him though I’ll sit down with my team and look at it from there.
I hope that Frank wins his world title fight but I just can’t see him winning. I think that Chudinov will be too much for him.”
Great night of World Title action
Topping the bill on the night at Manchester Arena on Saturday 10th October, WBO Middleweight Champion ‘Irish’ Andy Lee looks to make the first defence of his title against undefeated challenger Billy Joe Saunders.
The World title action doesn’t stop there though, as Manchester’s own Terry ‘Turbo’ Flanagan (28-0) also makes the first defence of the WBO Lightweight Championship in front of his home crowd against the dangerous American southpaw Diego Magdaleno (28-1).
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