It had been difficult pinning Nathaniel Collins down ahead of his fight against Lee McGregor in Glasgow on Saturday. For every call that showed up on his phone, there was a valid reason for him not to answer it and something else he would rather be talking about. Aside from the fight itself, there was a final spar and a check weigh-in. There were game plans and thoughts he would prefer to keep to himself. There was a need to stay focused, detached; a need to distance himself from most humans and all human emotions.
Without the reassurance of the boxer, it is, in this scenario, quite easy to worry or imagine the worst. Had he, for instance, suffered an injury and was either unable to fight or set to do so while compromised? Was he tight at the weight and walking around barely able to function? Or was the reason for his elusiveness simply because he was full of doubt and concerned about the fight on the horizon?
These are all very human things to both think and feel ahead of a fight and it is often only afterwards, when these fears are allayed, one understands the difference between boxers and the rest of us. In the case of Collins, his four-round demolition of McGregor, arguably one of the best performances of the year, could only ever have been the product of the intense focus and detachment he demonstrated before it. It was that good; that spiteful; that cruel. Watching it, it soon became clear that the one thing harder than tracking Collins down before a fight was landing a glove on him on fight night. On fight night, he was a master at work. He said everything that needed to be said with his tools: his left and right gloves.
Better yet, with his masterpiece finished and no longer a work in progress, he was then more than happy to discuss it. He couldn’t wait, in fact.
“The funny thing is, I actually love interviews, and I love talking and being able to get my story across,” Collins told Boxing Scene at 10 am the following Monday. “But before the fight I’m just a different person. All I can think about at every moment is who I’m fighting and the fight. I don’t know, something happens in my head before a fight. I don’t know if all fighters are the same, but I’m always being chased before a fight, whether it’s for interviews or something else, and I’m hard work to get to. But afterwards I’m all cool.”
The coolest man in the room, Collins’ temperature changed not once during fight week. He remained cool when it was proposed at the press conference that the winner of his fight with McGregor would go on to become the “new face of Scottish boxing” once Josh Taylor, Saturday’s headliner, called it a day, and he remained cool when his gaunt appearance at the weigh-in raised alarm among spectators, some of whom suggested his cut to featherweight was “dangerous”.
“I know people were saying I looked tight at the weight, and that it could be dangerous, but I genuinely made the weight fine,” Collins said. “I just happened to be in phenomenal shape and trained super hard. This is my lifestyle. I do all sorts of other training as well, when I’m not preparing for a fight, and that’s why I look the way I do when I’m about to fight. People think I struggle to get down to featherweight, but it’s really not the case.
“My refuelling and rehydration was spot on and I felt really good. [If weight-drained] You can always feel it in your legs, when you’re in the ring, or even walking to the ring. Your legs feel a certain way. But mine were fine. I was solid on my legs and felt good and calm.”
What helped this feeling of calm, perhaps, were the familiar surroundings. After all, not only was Collins boxing in Glasgow, a city he knows better than most, but in McGregor he had an opponent he knew inside and out. They had, he said, shared “many rounds” together in the past and had even once fought as amateurs, albeit in a bout as inconsequential as they come.
“That fight was when we were like 17 and it was three two-minute rounds in his home club’s bowling club show,” Collins said. “I forgot that fight even happened until they brought it up. They kept mentioning it as well. I just thought it was hilarious. It was the most irrelevant fight ever. Them mentioning it actually gave me a bit of a boost. To me, it showed that the confidence level wasn’t there if they needed to bring it up.”
There was certainly no desire on Collins’ part to get revenge on McGregor, who ultimately won that six-minute bout between teenagers. Instead, he was far more concerned with showing McGregor and his team how much he had improved since then and, in turn, showing the rest of the boxing world exactly what he could do. For Collins, Saturday was a platform, a showcase, a chance to announce himself.
“I never felt pressure,” said the former British and Commonwealth featherweight champion. “I put a bit of pressure on myself to show how good I really am, but that’s about it. I never felt external pressure; just the pressure of knowing how good I am and wanting to show it.
“There was actually quite a lot of media coverage and stuff on Lee, and a lot of chat around Lee, which made me feel a certain way. I was thinking, I’m the home fighter, and I’m also undefeated. But I knew the way I had prepared would lead to what happened on the night.”
In terms of that, nobody, not even Collins or his biggest fan, could have predicted the ease with which he nailed and hurt McGregor both early and repeatedly. Nor would they have predicted him dropping his countryman three times in round four before finishing the fight with a body shot in that same round.
“I knew that I would be able to box the way I boxed,” Collins said. “I just knew that would be how it would go because of how well I know Lee. But I didn’t think I would be able to hurt him like that, no. He’s a lot like myself, Lee. He can take a lot of punishment and pain and he has been through a lot. I thought, no matter what I did to him, he would come through the fire. But obviously I was punching hard and I was punching accurately and I never gave him any option but to go down.”
Collins, now 17-0 (8), added: “I felt like that was the best performance of my career. It was the best opponent, the best stage, the best result. I think I did everything perfectly. There was only a left hook in round two that got me. People kept saying to me afterwards, ‘What about that left hook you took in round two?’ They were saying it to me all night. But I genuinely didn’t remember getting hit with a shot. They said I did and kept calling it a ‘massive shot’. Even in the corner Joe [Ham, trainer] was saying to me, ‘Did you feel that shot?’ But I didn’t know what he was talking about. I then went back and watched the fight and saw it land. It was an absolute screamer of a shot right on the chin.
“It just shows that I’ve got an underrated attribute in my chin. I got hit clean with somebody’s hardest shot and it never did anything to me. I’ve just got something in my mind that refuses to accept being hurt and that’s it.”
Had he simply outboxed McGregor and received a decision after 12 rounds, nobody would have argued with the result or dared to demand anything more from Collins. However, what made Saturday so special was the manner of the victory and the beautiful southpaw counterpunching Collins exhibited en route to securing it. This aspect alone will ensure that what happened at The SSE Hydro is viewed differently than some of his previous wins. It should, in other words, be a result harder for people to ignore.
“Hopefully now I start to get the recognition I deserve,” Collins said. “Because this isn’t the first good performance I’ve put on and it’s not the first big win I’ve had. I must be the most underrated and unheard-of British champion ever. Whenever anybody else wins that title, it’s a massive deal, and whenever some prospect wins some other belt, they’re already being called a superstar. If somebody else had done what I’ve done, they’d already be called a superstar. I’m kind of just getting there. That performance, on that stage, it’s what I had to do to break out. I’m hoping that I have broken out now and I can just keep doing what I do, staying humble and on the right course.
“I said it the day I turned pro: ‘I don’t want to fight journeymen. I want to fight domestic fights and I want to fight for titles.’ I got moved to titles pretty quickly, which was good, and then, once I started to win titles, I said, ‘I don’t want to keep fighting domestic opposition, I need to be moved on.’
“I’ve been fighting domestically for a good couple of years now and this one [against McGregor] was another domestic one. But it was also against someone who was world-rated and probably the favorite. A couple of years ago they were talking about Lee fighting [Naoya] Inoue at bantamweight. He has already been established at world level. I then went and did that to him, so surely I must be in the world-level talks. That’s how I feel about it. I gave up a European title shot to take this fight and make a big statement. I knew the WBC ‘silver’ title would be on the line and that would put me in line for a world title shot. That’s what I want. I could not care about anything else other than a world title.”
Specifically, Collins has two names in mind: Stephen Fulton, who holds the WBC featherweight title, and Nick Ball, who owns the WBA version. Either of those fights would appeal to the Scot, both stylistically and in terms of the reward, and for now he refuses to think about going in any other direction.
“They’re the two I’m gunning for,” Collins said. “That’s it. There’s no two ways about it.
“I’ve seen other names mentioned but I don’t want any more domestic fights. I don’t care about them. I’ll do to anybody domestically what I just did to Lee. I genuinely believe that. I’m not here to waste my time on other fights. I’ve been a pro for seven years now and before that I was an amateur for seven years. I’m a long time in the game.
“They’re both good fighters [Fulton and Ball]. I honestly think featherweight is one of the best divisions. All the world champions at this level are super dangerous. But I also feel like I’m dangerous and that I deserve to be up there. I can hang with these guys. I’ve seen their weaknesses and seen other people do certain things to them. They are very talented fighters, and very tough, fit and gritty, but so am I. So, it means nothing to me. I would never be afraid. I know how hard I’m working and how good I am. If the guy who turned up on Saturday turns up against any of these guys, it’s the same kind of story.”
As for Collins’ own story, one he is now happy to tell, we are, despite the 14 years he has invested in the sport, still only at the beginning of it – at least as far as his potential is concerned. There will, it seems, be plenty more chapters for him to write. There will also be plenty more people interested in following it as a result of what he did to McGregor on Saturday.
“I haven’t been backed by a big promoter and I’ve had to come up the hard way,” Collins, 28, said. “I’ve done all the nitty-gritty stuff; I’ve paid my dues to the game. I’ve also never made a song or dance about it. I’ve not felt sorry for myself. I’ve taken everything that I had to take on the chin and now I’m ready to take what I have earned.”
Before he does, Collins will first treat himself to a well-earned holiday, albeit not your typical post-fight break. In fact, on Thursday, he will fly to Italy, where he will compete in the HYROX global fitness race; a race in which competitors start with a 1km run followed by one functional workout (Ski Erg, Sled Push, Sled Pull, Burpee Broad Jump, Rowing, Farmers Carry, Sandbag Lunges, and Wall Balls), and then do this eight times. And they wonder why there is not an ounce of fat on him.