Liam Cameron returns to the big stage tonight on the undercard of Dalton Smith-Jose Zepeda in his native Sheffield.
Cameron (22-5, 9 KOs) was riding high in 2017 after winning the Commonwealth title against local rival Sam Sheedy. He defended his title with a knockout over Nicky Jenman six months later, but the result was changed to a No Contest after Cameron failed a drug test for cocaine. He would be handed a four-year ban by the British Board of Control.
“I ended up doing five years because I let myself go that much that I just packed in boxing,” Cameron said in an exclusive interview for boxingscene.com. “Then I thought, you know what, after five years I’m going to give it another go. I wasn’t expecting much, I just wanted to have a couple of fights to see if I could get back to the big stage.”
Cameron returned with a narrow points win over the 2-2-2 Robbie Connor at the Park Community Arena in Sheffield last October, a first round knockout over British journeyman Harry Matthews followed four months later, leading to today’s clash with Hussein Itaba.
“I wasn’t sent a letter or anything [by the BBBoC] I just gauged it and reapplied for my license,” Cameron explained. “They were not bad and gave it to me straight away to be fair. I just let myself down with everything. I became an alcoholic and I was six stone overweight, but I haven’t had a drink now for 15 months.
“I was getting over the death of my step daughter at the time, but here we are, we are back on the big stage. I’m buzzing. Lee [Eaton] came on board as my manager after Grant [Smith] put it forward to me.”
Sheffield is one of the UK’s hotbeds for boxing. Despite half a decade away from the sport, Cameron has sold more than 200 tickets for tonight’s clash with Itaba.
“I got a tough African,” Cameron added. “I don’t know too much about him. He looks quite poor but he’s got a punch. We will see how it goes, I’m confident.
“When I came back, I ended up fighting at cruiserweight because it was hard to lose so much weight. I was massive! It was hard for me against a stocky 6ft 3ins guy, and obviously I had a lot going off outside the ring, but everything is sorted now.”
At the time of Cameron’s ban, he spoke to me about the differing penalties for different drugs. He felt hard done by that fighters were being given six month bans for PED use compared to the recreational substance found in Cameron’s system.
“I’m at peace with it now,” Cameron said. “I’m here now, no point going on about it. The plan is to stay undefeated on my comeback, I’m only 33 years old. I’ll be at super middleweight and I just need to stay positive. You can’t predict anything, I might get a title shot in my next fight. Who knows?”
