Desi ghee vs Snake blood- Vijender and Horvath prepare for battle
Ace Indian boxer Vijender Singh will face Alexander Horvath in Liverpool tomorrow as he looks to continue his unbeaten record in professional boxing. The Haryana boy has said he will stick to “desi ghee” as reports emerged of his Hungarian opponent consuming snake blood in preparation for the bout.
In what will be his fourth bout since turning pro, Vijender is preparing for his bout against the snake-blood-consuming opponent Horvath, feeding on desi ghee. The Indian boxing poster boy said, “I read in media reports that Horvath has made snake blood part of his diet but I don’t care at all as Desi Ghee has been part of my diet from the beginning of my career.”
Yet to box in an official match this calendar year, Vijender Singh has started to train harder as he looks to get in perfect shape before the bout against his Hungarian opponent. Alexander Horvath unlike Vijender has been in the professional boxing circuit for much longer, winning five of his seven bouts as a pro and will be giving the Indian a run for his money.
Vijender turned professional in October 2015, winning his first three bouts via knockout across just six rounds. Going into the bout, which is to be held at Liverpool’s Cavern Club, Vijender has started to put in extra hours in training, practising 10 hours a day.
Vijender beat Bulgarian Samet Hyuseinov in his last bout which took place in Manchester back in December and had a good 3 months to strategize for the bout against Horvath after the event got postponed by a month. The bout which was supposed to take place on February 13 got postponed as the WBO World Lightweight champion Terry Flanagan suffered an injury, disabling him to participate in the event thus causing the delay. Bubbling with confidence after his three back-to-back knockout wins, Vijender said "It's very unfortunate that my fight on 13th February is rescheduled because of an injury to the contender of a title fight. But nevertheless, I am preparing hard and waiting for March 12 when I see my opponent in the ring. I am doing more sparring and physical workout these days and it will help me to prepare myself for more rounds."
Shadow boxing, footwork and stance are the areas where Vijender focusses his training. The Indian boxer oozed with confidence despite being the lesser experienced of the two. “Horvath is a good solid opponent, maybe he will give me a few new tests, he has done more rounds than me and has a bit more experience, but will that compete with the power that I have and when I start landing my shots. I don’t believe that he’ll be standing around for too long,” he said.
The war of words didn’t end there as Horvath responded without mincing any words, calling Vijender a pretender. “Three before me have tried and failed to beat Singh, so now I will finally end this pretender’s hope of winning a title. Everyone who has gone into the ring with him seem like they are a rabbit in headlights. I have seen nothing from Singh that worries me or causes sleepless nights so I’m full confident going into the fight and ready to knock him out. I hope that his chin is ready for the punches that I will be landing on them because for once he will be put under a real test by me,” said the Hungarian.
Vijender Singh will be looking to beat Horvath as he continues his preparations to win the WBO Asia belt later in June this year, in front of the home crowd in India.
