like 36 is old at all.
“He’s probably going to want to put on a show on home soil so I’m not underestimating him thinking, ‘he’s
on his way out’, or, ‘this is some retirement fight’. I feel like he’s going to prepare himself properly.
“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 like that’s what’s going to make him nervous. He’s been in with big names before like Andre Ward
but there’s no embarrassment if you lose those kinds of fights. But I’m just a kid from east London who
started boxing at 19 years old and worked his way through the rankings.”
Given the lack of world-level opponents on his record, the jury remains out on Yarde as a genuine elite
force but he has promised that the prospect of facing Kovalev will not produce even an ounce of fear.
He says: “I’ve got a tattoo on my arm that says: ‘In life we go through different struggles, but how we deal
with them makes us who we are.’ So how you challenge your struggles determines your character.
Yarde hopes to shock the Russian and become a
world champion (Getty)“I’ve seen a lot of bad things happen by people I know and to people I know – but it’s very multicultural in
east London; I’ve been chased by a group of young black boys, I’ve been chased by a group of young
Somalian boys, I’ve been chased by a group of elderly white guys.
“But I found myself attracting negative things because I was in a negative environment. I was pre-
determining this stuff before it happened. You’re always looking over your shoulder and thinking about
what might happen. You’re attracting it towards you.
“But now, I’m on a straight path and when you think about positive things, positive things follow you.
When you think negative, that’s what you get.”
Yarde takes on Kovalev for the WBO light heavyweight title, on BT Sport 2, Saturday 24 August 5-9pm.