Inverness heavyweight Gary Cornish is hopeful a more settled training camp can help him return to winning ways against Englishman David Howe in Glasgow tonight.
Cornish lost out on the British heavyweight boxing title in his last outing in October, when he suffered defeat at the hands of Norwich’s Sam Sexton.
The 30-year-old endured a disrupted preparation for that fight, having parted with previous trainer Billy Nelson less than three weeks before the Edinburgh bout.
Cornish feels lessons have been learned from the build-up to the Sexton fight and he wants to return in style when he takes on Sheffield fighter Howe at Crowne Plaza.
Cornish said: “I’m just looking forward to getting back in there.
“That night I knew everything that had happened before, but I still didn’t look out of place in there.
“When I first started boxing I watched Sam Sexton and thought to myself that if I could get to that level, I would be doing well.
“I was at that level that night – and I know if my camp was proper I could have beaten him.
“It’s all part of the learning. They say you learn more from a loss.
“I know everything that went wrong and if anything like that goes wrong again I’m prepared for it in my mind.”
Cornish recently relocated from Glasgow back home to Inverness and teamed up with former trainer Liam Foy, and he insists he is in a far happier place both in and out of the ring.
He added: “Last year was a bit of a nightmare, being away from my family and friends. You need some life out of training as well, and when I was away I didn’t have a life. It was just training, so I’m definitely.
“Liam and I have always got on – I have used his club all the time and he was my old amateur coach.
“As I say to everyone, he’s honestly the most enthusiastic person I’ve ever met and just 100% boxing. It rubs off on everyone that’s with him.”
Cornish is refusing to look past 6ft 8in Howe, who has a 14-6 record, and he added: “I’m always just focused on the next fight. We can talk after the fight and we will see what my manager Sam Kynoch has got planned, but I’m just focused on this one.
“I have seen quite a bit of him and he’s actually quite a decent boxer – he has got quite a good style.
“But I’m there to do a job and that’s what I’m going to do.”
