TARIQ Quaddus believes that his hunger for success has grown after witnessing the British super-fight between Carl Froch and George Groves.
The Swindon-based super-middleweight was part of the 80,000-strong crowd at Wembley Stadium last Saturday night to see the IBF and WBA world champion crush Groves with a single right-cross in the eighth round.
And having seen British boxing history made in north-west London, the 23-year-old, who faces Jamie Ambler on Saturday night at the Oasis Leisure Centre on the undercard of Kelvin Young’s first defence of his IBO super-middleweight inter-continental title, says that event has given him even more inspiration to succeed.
“Definitely (it makes you hungrier), seeing something like that does make you get itchy knuckles,” Quaddus said. “Seeing it one week before my fight has edged me on a little bit.
“I think the more people you box in front of and the bigger the event it urges fighters to perform better.”
Although still in the early stages of his career, the clash with Ambler will only be Quaddus’ sixth outing as a professional and his fourth since returning to the ring after a five-and-a-half break, the hard-hitting former England international hopes that one day he can play his part in a marquee boxing event.
“Something like that won’t be done again for a long, long time,” he said. “There will be some big fights down the road, 20-25,000, but Wembley 80,000 is a different level. It is all about performing well against top opposition, taking the right fights at the right time and then the opportunity will come.
“Maybe not headlining the night, but maybe the undercard on the same show of a big fight, you are still fighting in front of the same amount of people - one day we will get there.”
Despite his hectic training schedule for the Ambler fight, which sees him step up to six-rounds for the first time, Quaddus was pleased that he was able to sit back, relax and enjoy the occasion.
“Because I have been so busy, three fights in nine weeks, it was nice to be able to go there and sit down and watch without being too engaged for once,” he said.
“It was nice to sit back and watch and enjoy boxing from the seats, I was sort of switched off but aware of what was going on.”
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