Tony Bellew was in full flow at this week’s press conference in Manchester to kick off the build-up to his showdown with cruiserweight number one Oleksandr Usyk in November.

It’s a fight that Bellew didn’t have to take at all.

More than likely could have earned more money elsewhere, but the achievement that comes along with this fight if he were to win is almost incomparable to any other bout that he could have taken.

Speaking at the presser Bellew said:

“Everyone asks why. I was on my honeymoon and for one reason or another I was stood there watching Oleksandr beat-up Murat Gassiev on a mobile phone. The fight stops, and then he makes the ultimate sin and he says my name, and it didn’t take long. As soon as he said my name I knew. When I was watching the phone, I knew.

“The World’s going to write me off, and the more you write me off the more I want to fight. We will see. I’m going up against the monster, the man who nobody really wants to fight. The man who just dismantles fighters and beats them easily. Make no mistake, he’s looking past me already. He might say he’s not, but he’s already asking Eddie ‘who am I going to fight at Heavyweight’. He thinks I’m arrogant. It is not arrogance that he sees, for the first time in his whole career he sees a man looking back at him that believes he can win, and not a man that believes he’s just going to lose. I don’t just think or believe, I know. I’m going to find a way, I always do. You will have to nail me to the floor, you will have to nail me to the floor to keep me there.

“I’ve got no disrespectful things to say to him, he’s an amazing Champion. On November 10 he’s going to learn that I bring something different to everyone else. I have the one thing that he doesn’t have, and that’s a punch that can switch lights off within the blink of an eye. One wrong step or one wrong manoeuvre, and it’s over. Every time that I’m wrote off I always find a way and on November 10 it’s going to be no different.”