Mark Tibbs: ‘It’s Going To Be A Battle And A Half Between Tw

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Mark Tibbs: ‘It’s Going To Be A Battle And A Half Between Two Truly World Class Gladiators!’

 

Kevin Mitchell hasn’t always enjoyed the smoothest of passages since linking with feted father-son training team of Jimmy and Mark Tibbs three years ago.

 

Interspersed between career high wins over Breidis Prescott and John Murray, the ‘Mighty One’ has suffered a crushing world title defeat plus debilitating personal and judicial problems.

 

However, speaking to boxing writer Glynn Evans yesterday, coach Mark was adamant that the Dagenham Destroyer has never been healthier, in both body or mind, as he tapers down for his crucial WBO lightweight challenge to Scotland’s Ricky Burns at the SECC, Glasgow on Saturday week.

 

Burns v Mitchell will live and exclusive on BoxNation (Sky Ch. 437/ Virgin Ch. 546). Join at http://www.boxnation.com

 

What kind of condition was Kevin in when he first came to you and your dad prior to the Breidis Prescott fight?

 

Well, I have to say that Kevin had all the fighting attributes that you’d desire. I think he was born with them. However, at that time he weren’t that strong physically so we really got to work on improving that by getting Kevin to do a lot of work against his own body weight, lots of groundwork and resistance work. Initially, he found a lot of the drills hard but there’s been a noticeable improvement.

 

Also, slowly, slowly, we’ve introduced head movement to see if it suited and that’s really working for Kevin. I have to say that Kevin’s got a very good brain with regard to knowing what’s good for him, what’ll work for him.

 

Subsequently, we’ve had to build up his mental strength because of all that he’s been through. Right now, Kevin’s in the best mental shape mentally that I’ve ever seen him in because going through those negative experiences has really helped him to mature as a person.

 

He’s finally starting to get good people around him. Bill Ives, who owns Rainham Steel and who’s a huge boxing fan, has been a particularly good influence. At the very start of this camp he took Kevin to Canada for a fortnight and when he came back his head was in a fantastic place. He’s really knuckled down.

 

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