Davidson finally gets fight date

It will be a year ago this weekend that the Nigerian fighter, who is now based in Southampton, won the strap with a brutal second round stoppage of Philip Kotey at Oceana.

In the intervening 12 months, Davidson has seen a number of potential title defences fall through for a variety of reasons.

He has had just one other outing, a fifth-round stoppage victory over Andrejs Loginovs in March.

Finally, though, Davidson is confident of making a title defence back in Nigeria.

Before that, he is optimistic of tying up a major sponsorship deal that could help to quickly advance his career, and fund some high profile fights back in Southampton where his profile had been growing before his inactivity.

Davidson’s trainer, Wayne Batten, said: “There have been quite a lot of false starts but the sanctioning fees have been paid now, so if the promoters were to back out they would be losing quite a lot of money.

“Therefore I have to believe this fight will happen.

“It has been a long time now since King won the title and the defence is long overdue.

“It’s been pretty unfortunate for King with the things that have happened since, but hopefully the sponsorship will come through too and if it does that will be a big thing for him.

“It would allow King to put the money towards advancing his career, and help fund the kind of fights he needs to keep him active and get him on to the next level.

“We are confident that King can go a long way in the sport, but it might be that he needs this to push himself forward to a point where he cannot be ignored.

“Then the success and the money tends to follow anyway.”

It’s a busy time for Batten with Tommy Watson and Shane Watson both looking likely to make a permanent move to his bustling gym at Shamrock Quay.

In addition, he is busy preparing Matty Tew for his Prize Fighter appearance a week on Saturday which could net the Southampton fighter £32,000 if he were to win.