Monday, May 12

Monday - and the start of the last of my two hard weeks.

In many ways this fight is more important than the Floyd Mayweather fight. I am coming back from my first defeat and I want to come back with a good win.

I can't wait to get in the ring and face Juan Lazcano on May 24th who is ranked number four by the IBO and has been in against some great opponents so it should make for great fight.

Monday, Wednesay and Friday are my hardest days with Tuesday and Thursday a little easier. I run every day so it's all systems go at the moment. My sparring partners went back to America last week. My good friend Robert Diaz sourced two great guys in Humberto Tapia and David Rodela.

I have been working hard for this fight and I have also introduced a new trainer in my camp, Lee Beard. Lee has been doing some pad work with me and I have really enjoyed working with him.

It's been nearly three years since my last fight in England, when I fought Carlos Maussa in Sheffield. As you know since then, I travelled to America and had four championship fights, I won two light-welterweight titles and a welterweight tile to boot. It's almost like Las Vegas has become my second home.

Unfortunately the last fight against Floyd didn't go the way I had hoped it would, however one thing came out of it. I must without any doubt have the best support of any fighter in the world, with nearly 40,000 fans travelling to Las Vegas in December for the Mayweather fight.

With that in mind I always said that I wanted my homecoming fight to be family-friendly. So I asked my team to look at putting some tickets on sale for family groups. I think this is the first time ever at a boxing contest. I also wanted the fight to be scheduled for British television audiences. The fight is live on Sky Box Office (You can book it on 08442 410888!).

On the undercard is Paulie Malignaggi and Lovemore N'Dou fighting for the IBF Light-Welterweight title. They both arrive in Manchester later this week. I wonder what they will make of it on the night! There were 50,000 tickets sold in the first weekend alone so it should be some atmosphere!

Also on the undercard are some other great title fights, but one of the most important for me will be my brother Matthew's fight against Craig Watson for the Commonwealth Welterweight championship.

For a long time now I think Matthew has been overlooked and this is his big chance. He has been working hard with trainer Lee Beard and he looks very sharp. I am a bag of nerves when Matthew fights. I am more nervous for him than I am for my own fights!

I have been telling anybody who would listen since I started boxing that one day I would love to fight at Manchester City's ground. I had hoped it could have been Maine Road but that wasn't to be. But there aren't many grounds in the country better than the City of Manchester stadium.

I went down to the ground last week with Adam Smith the lads from Sky Sports and had a good walk around the ground and in the dressing rooms. It's still hard to imagine that in less than two weeks the fight will be there...

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