WOULD this tour be happening – would you be friends like you are – if you’d won that night at Wembley?
I’m not sure. I don’t know whether Carl would be proud of the achievement [of the occasion], like I’m proud of the achievement, if it was the other way around, because Carl had a lot of other big nights and achievements. The narrative was, he’d beat me the first time, albeit controversially; if I’d beat him the second time, it’d just have highlighted the first one…
I like to think we would. He’s much more mature – nine years on, we’re both more mature people who have been away from boxing for a sizeable chunk now. I think we would. He’d had 10 ‘world’ title fights before then, back to back. He was in a good space. My story’s winning a ‘world’ title at the end, at the fourth attempt.
How much easier would being around him, and revisiting it to the extent you do, be if you’d won?
I genuinely feel in a good place with it all. Comfortable with the way it went. I appreciate Carl. As bizarre as it sounds, I can
