By Declan Taylor
ANTHONY YARDE will have no problem playing Russian Roulette on Saturday — having TWICE had guns pulled on him.
The Londoner only made his amateur debut at 19 and has just 30 fights to his name.
But he challenges Russian great Sergey Kovalev for his WBO light-heavyweight title in Chelyabinsk.
Many reckon the Hackney-born puncher has bitten off more than he can chew taking on three-time champ “Krusher “Kovalev, 36, in his first ever crack at a world belt — especially in deepest, darkest Russia.
But Yarde says growing up around in East London primed him for “hostile environments”.
He said: “I was born in Hackney and one of the most dangerous moments of my life happened right there.
“Guns were pulled out on us by elder guys.
“The same thing happened to me in South London, I shouldn’t have been there but the car came out of nowhere.
“Sometimes you found yourself in conflict or within an area where there’s conflict. Some days you just find yourself in danger.
“Sometimes these things mould you and that’s what I mean about hostile environments. For me, that would be the youth club — there were gangs and you know people have knives and are looking to do damage.
“They are the situations where you start to feel the nerves building because you don’t know what’s going to happen.
“How is it going to go when I’m out there in Russia? I don’t know but I know I’ll just adapt.”
Yarde arrived in Russia earlier this week to get used to his surroundings before his biggest fight.
He added: “We have given ourselves enough time to acclimatise, get used to the atmosphere and get the mind right. Then come fight night I go out there and do the job.
“Food wise, I’ll try to find a supermarket and try to find normal food — tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, chicken and fish. We don’t know what we’re going to get.”
Yarde is the underdog with every bookmaker and victory in Russia will go down as one of the best wins by a Brit abroad ever.
But he said: “The vibration I’m getting is that he doesn’t really want to fight me. He’s thinking ‘this guy has only had 18 professional fights, he only had 12 amateur fights and I’m a future Hall of Famer, I can’t let
this kid come and beat me’. But that’s what’s going to happen.
“I feel that’s what’s going to make him nervous. I’m just a kid from East London who started boxing at 19 years old and worked his way up.
“But my name’s in the mix now and it shows what’s going to come in the future.”
Article courtesy of The Sun
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