Feature: Leamington boxing hero Lewis Williams looks ahead to ‘homecoming’ fight

Lewis will step back into the ring soon in a fight steeped in full-circle symbolism when he returns to Birmingham – the city where his rise into the professional ranks took off when he won the medal.

The 27-year-old will fight on the Queensberry Promotions card at BP Pulse Live on a bill topped by Liam Davies's European and WBO Intercontinental featherweight title defence against Nathaniel Collins on Saturday September 26.

The Courier caught up with Lewis at Cleary’s Boxing Gym this week as he reaches the final stages of his training for the fight which takes place at the same NEC complex “where it all changed for him” four years ago.

Lewis said: “Looking back, it was a huge success even though there was a lot going on in the background.

"But during the tournament I didn’t really know about the support I was receiving because I was locked away in a hotel for a couple of weeks.

"Going home after, I saw the buzz on social media and walking around the town and having so many people come up to me and congratulate me was crazy.

"It was a real big change for me in boxing to see the level of support I had from my home town.”

Despite the fight being considered a ‘homecoming’ for Lewis, he said he isn’t feeling any pressure in the build-up to it and is fully prepared for the test.

He said: “I have one more sparring session tomorrow and then we’ll move on to maintaining my sharpness and continue to work on that.

"It’ll still be high intensity but not so long and then I’ll build up my energy throughout the week.

"This is actually a nicer period of the training.”

At the time of the interview, Lewis was yet to find out who his opponent for the fight was going to be.

He said not being sure who he was going to fight next at the Commonwealth Games prepared him for such circumstances.

"You’d have to decide on the day how you were going to box that opponent,” Lewis said.

"I learned how to adapt and that’s a skill I’ve taken with me.

"I’ve just got to sharpen all the tools and bring them to the job.”

Since leaving the amateur ranks after the Commonwealth Games, Lewis says he’s worked hard to maintain his professionalism and to look after himself away from his coaching team.

He said: “It’s about having the right team around me who push me in the right way but that’s also not too over the top.

"I’ve also had to adapt to the business element of the sport.”

Lewis heads into the Birmingham date on the back of a career-defining training camp.

Earlier this year, Lewis was invited by Oleksandr Usyk to join the Undisputed Heavyweight World Champion at his training camp in Spain.

Booked in for a single week, Lewis impressed enough to be retained for almost five weeks of sparring and he also reconnected with two-weight World Champion Anthony Joshua, who was working alongside Usyk's team during the same period.

Lewis said: “It was hard graft and such an amazing experience.

"I took so much knowledge away from that camp just by watching.

"I’d finish the sparring and just look around the gym and see how the whole team would work.

"And, of course, sparring with Usyk helped me to learn more about what he does, how he does it and how he adapts to other boxers.

"He showed me how he makes the opponent keep thinking and how it drains them and breaks them down.”

Regardless of who he faces next weekend, Lewis is confident he can add another win to his record.

He said: “This is the best training camp I’ve had so far, it’s been brilliant.

"So long as everything goes as good as it has been up to the fight, I’m happy.”

One man who is “supremely confident” about Lewis’s chances of continuing his unbeaten run is his coach Edwin Cleary.

He said: “We’re winding down before the fight but once we find out who Lewis’s opponent is, we’ll figure out what we’re going to work on.

"Lewis has done the hard work and I know every fighter will say this is the best camp they’ve had but in this one he’s jumped up a level.

"He’s done a lot of eight and ten rounds in the Matchroom gym, I think he’s realised that this is his level.

"You won’t see the best of Lewis until he starts doing eight, ten and 12-round fights and we’re asking Queensbury to put a bit more consistency into his fights and have him boxing at the level which will give him more rounds.

"I don’t want stoppages, I’m not interested in that because as it was shown recently with Moses Itauma, if you move up a fighter too quickly then things can go seriously wrong."

Edwin also looks back to Lewis’s Commonwealth Games win with immense pride particularly because Lewis was also coping with his late father Bob being very ill at the time.

He said, after Lewis’s win in the final, he thought the stand in which he was sat ringside was going to collapse - such was the enthusiasm of the support for Lewis shown by the crowd.

Edwin said: “After that, I had so many people coming up to me in Leamington, Warwick and Kenilworth asking me about Lewis even if they weren’t boxing fans.

"As a coach you always look for things to tick off for your boxers and in the future Lewis could be walking out in front of a crowd of 90,000 people at Wembley Stadium or Maddison Square Garden or Las Vegas or Riyad and I’d be able to say to him ‘remember how you felt when that crowd roared for you in Birmingham and how your home town fans came out in support of you? This is like that’.”