Dillian Whyte: Lucas Browne is a bully, a nasty piece of work

Dillian Whyte

“It means a lot to headline The O2. Topping the bills as a star is what I’ve been working for. Nothing good comes easy. Boxing is a hard sport to make a living from and it gets even harder to stay at the top when you get there. I am well aware of that, but I’m a tough man and I don’t give up easily.

“I’ve done it the hard way, built myself up and battled to get to where I am through a lot of setbacks. My rage and anger got me to a certain point in the sport and then I had the accident. I’m a realist and an analyst, I took myself away and I realized I had to become more professional and get good people around me and I made the transition, that’s what is here now and there’s still more to come, but I am getting there.

“You have to be yourself, if you are and you believe in yourself and what you say, you aren’t going to do wrong things, you just have to be honest and real, that’s all a man can do.

“He has had his ups and downs outside the ring. He’s a controversial guy both in actions and words, but all that aside, it’s a really good fight. He’s 6ft 5in, a big puncher, 23 KOs from 25 wins, so it’s dangerous but that’s the sort of fights I want, I like to get in there and have it.

“I want to KO him and he wants to KO me. I’ve learned that people can say one thing and when they get in the ring and see it’s going to be a hard night, they change the way they fight.

“I always try to be in great fights but it takes two to fight. I can’t make the fights, build the fights and fight myself – the opponent has to come to fight. If they come to box and be elusive and defensive and boring, then I have to deal with that and get the win, but if they come to fight, then I will fight too. When it heats up, that’s when you see the best of me, the hotter it gets the better.

“Lucas has been talking rubbish on social media for a long time now, not just around this fight. I only dislike the guys that take liberties and Lucas has done that and has carried on doing it all the way up to the fight. He’s a bully, he speaks bad about so many people, in and out of boxing, he’s a nasty piece of work.”