Bader Samreen takes a stroll to his balcony, flips the camera on his phone and skews it right as he leans over the edge: "Can you see it?". Some many miles in the distance sits the Burj Khalifa, dwarfing its neighbouring infrastructure while piercing the dusty sky that has cloaked Dubai that Monday afternoon.
Out of sight, out of mind, by choice; Samreen willingly blind-eyes the on-tap opulence of his home from home, embracing the outskirts as a self-confessed 'village over city person'. With appreciation and gratitude for the jazzy restaurants, luxury beach settings and tourist-indulged glamour down the road comes a stubbornness in the self-awareness of why he is there.
He is here for business. Here to fight. Here to clobber the norm and narrow paths that sought to repel him and his ambitions growing up.
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"One of my dad's old friends - they're not friends anymore - told him 'if your son makes it in boxing I will personally wipe his sweat!'," Samreen tells Sky Sports.
"That was back in 2014/15 when my brother and I were teenagers.
"Right now, I want to see him! I want to know where he's at - let him wipe my sweat!"
Uncles and grandparents would warn Samreen's father of wasting money on his son's boxing career, pointing to the rich conveyor belt of talent in the United States, in the United Kingdom, in anywhere but Jordan, and the resulting lop-sided odds of success.
"My dad had a vision, he was like 'I believe in them and if they make it we'll all make it and if they one day make it I'll make sure everybody wishes to wipe their face in the rain'," he adds, the latter part carrying a 'head buried in the sand' feel to it.
Now 22, Samreen represents his nation as the first professional fighter from Jordan, his ascent recently featuring a spot on the undercard of Tommy Fury and Jake Paul's globally-followed grudge match six months on from a role in the blockbuster show headlined by Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk's rematch in Saudi Arabia last August.
He dropped and stopped Viorel Simion in the first round in February to improve to 8-0, the latest win on his growing resume coming in the company of an A-lister crowd across which the likes of Mike Tyson, Cristiano Ronaldo, Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder were scattered. Reassurance that he is on his way.
"I always dreamed about being in that place where I'm at right now and I have bigger goals for the future, but it was an amazing experience," he said. "Growing up there was never somebody like that to look up to where I'm at right now and for me I get a lot of inspiring messages from young people back in Jordan and other countries.
"Seeing these people on the TV and then they come and watch me, that's crazy. It makes me even more hungry because I know that I'm on my way to my goals, I'm closer."
Before boxing it had been football, such is its unrivalled popularity compared to other sports in Jordan. But when injury arose at around the age of 11 Samreen found himself sat at home with little to do, until his brother invited him to join him at the local gym.
"I still remember, it was November 2012, it was raining very heavy, and I still remember because me and my brother had to take a service car to the gym, it was like a taxi but the cheap version, and we stood there for a while waiting for this service car to pull up. It was amazing, since then I've never really stopped," he recalls.
He naturally credits his rise to brother Hesham, who fought for Jordan in the Tokyo Olympic qualifiers and could yet become the second professional to emerge from the country.
As he engaged in the sport further Samreen would study and admire videos of Roy Jones Jr, Floyd Mayweather Jr and Naseem Hamed, the latter with whom he has since become friends. He chuckles as he describes his love for the 'killer' that was Mike Tyson.
In 2018 he competed in the lightweight category at the AIBA Youth World Boxing Championships, winning a landmark first world medal for Jordan by fighting through an arm injury to clinch bronze in Budapest. It prompted a relentless two-year social media campaign of Samreen sourcing contacts and opportunity that might help springboard his career, knowing the limitations that came in the confines of a country unaware of boxing's enormity.
"I used to text people, promoters, managers non-stop after I achieved the bronze because I knew I wasn't losing anything, it's just a message, my CV," he says. "The worst case is somebody tells me no or doesn't see the message, or I would hit the jackpot and somebody would tell me 'yes, I love your style and I will take you in'.
"From 2018 to the end of 2020, over three years, I was messaging somebody and they eventually got back to me and in February 2021 they brought me into the United Arab Emirates in Dubai.
"If I didn't do that I would still be in Jordan probably not even boxing anymore because I needed money, I needed to live, I needed to take care of my family, any boxing does not cut anything over there.
"If you are a team member in the US or GB boxing you will be taken care of and be making money, over there it's not like that. You've got to work and train, at some point you end up wasting your time in that sport because there is nobody to look up to."
There were no Bader Samreens to look up to as a teenager in Jordan. Samreen would ask himself 'How the hell am I going to get out?'. A contact he had made in Dubai finally came up trumps and so as 2020 drew to a close he packed his bags and made the three hour flight to start his new life.
By March 2021 he was making his professional debut Joshua Barnor, winning by way of second-round TKO at Round 10 Boxing Club.
"After somebody takes you in and you start your professional career that's when it goes back to 'it's all on you'," he adds. "Now all I have to do is keep training and winning and eventually I'll be up there.
"If I was training hard and kept training hard in Jordan but there was no opportunity to fight in the pro game I would be left in the dust. This is what a lot of people don't understand also.
"If I had money, a different passport, back in the day I would have just left the country on my own. It's hard to do that when you're young and you don't have money and a Jordanian passport, everything requires a VISA. It's really hard. I got the chance and now we're here, no more looking back."
Samreen's rise would coincide that of boxing's eruption in the Middle East, the influx of high-profile events presenting an ideal stage on which to be seen.
In May 2021 he defeated Moaaz Allam via first-round TKO on the undercard of professional strongman Thor Björnsson (The Mountain in Game of Thrones) vs Simon Vallily; in November 2021 he knocked out Digari Mahesh ahead of Muhammad Waseem's WBA title eliminator against Rober Barrera; in March 2022 he stopped Denis Bartos in the fourth round on the Sunny Edwards vs Waseem card; in August 2022 he beat Fuad Tarverdi via fourth-round TKO on a night that featured Ben Whittaker, Badou Jack, Callum Smith and Filip Hrgovic ahead of Usyk's second victory over Joshua.
Word is getting around. Slowly.
"Sadly boxing is not really that popular in Jordan," says Samreen. "There are a lot of people that don't know I'm a pro boxer which is crazy because I'm one of 11 million, being one of 11 million is crazy to think about. Not just any pro boxer, I've fought on big shows.
"They don't know, it's also because the media in Jordan is not really strong enough to let people understand what's going on. If the King knew I was a pro boxer he would take care of me like nobody, but he doesn't. I don't blame him, it's hard to get to him and the authorities but for you to have somebody that is so special that it's one of 11 million and also carries the name of your country outside the media should have done better work."
Such can be the life of a young prospect that Samreen played the role of 'float fight' on the night of AJ's rematch against Usyk, meaning he was given no designated slot and could be called upon at any moment should a quick knockout open a window on the undercard. Failing that, the float fighter might emerge to an empty crowd once the main event is finished.
It can serve as an unwritten initiation, testing the boundaries of a rising fighter's ability to be ready on command and his patience to temper any ego or self-confidence as the small fish in a big pond.
"I arrived to the arena around 5.30pm-ish, and the show started at 6pm," he remembers. "The Commissioners told me to get wrapped up at 6.30pm, once you get wrapped up you're not allowed to eat or drink anything but water, it was crazy. It was starving, I needed to go to the toilet but I couldn't.
"Some of the fights took longer than expected, we expected there to be a knockout, but most of them went the distance. If it gets to the co-main event, there's no way I'm fighting after the co-main event before Joshua. They'd make me fight after Joshua when the venue is empty, when it's 3am and I got there at 5pm so imagine!"
Samreen has just watched Richard Rivera take Badou Jack 10 rounds in their cruiserweight contest, knowing his fate is now riding on how Callum Smith navigates his light-heavyweight clash with Mathieu Bauderlique. After that is the co-main event between Filip Hrgovic and Zhang Zhilei. After that is Joshua and Usyk.
"Callum Smith came on and they said if he knocks his opponent out inside eight rounds you go in," Samreen continues. "It was already around 10pm I think, I've been wrapped up for four hours already. Callum Smith goes one, two, three, four and I'm like 'pleeeasseee knock him out'. That's the first time I prayed somebody got knocked out which is the worst thing you can do, but I need to fight. Boom, he knocks him out and the Commissioner comes and goes 'it's your turn, let's go, let's go'."
To ensure Joshua was out on time Samreen's fight was chiselled from six to four rounds, a 35,000 capacity crowd lying in wait at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium.
'The Master' rarely gets nervous. Today he was nervous.
"I was like 'let's go Bader, it's your time to shine'," he laughs. "I had a sick kit on, I had the Jordan flag on the back and the Saudi flag on the front and when I walked out everybody was screaming for me because I was representing Jordan and fighting out of UAE, everybody was freaking out.
"When I walked out I was acting like I knew what to do, I was waving, smiling, but from the inside I was like 'f*** my life', I never get nervous but I had some weird adrenaline rush, it came to my knees and my knees started shaking, I was like 'get your s*** together, it's our time, it's now or never'."
He recalls taking a moment to compose himself on the stairs before entering the ring, a second feeling like a minute as he squinted into the bright lights that had veiled the top tier of seats.
Midway through the final round the referee brought things to a halt as a dominant Samreen broke the resistance of Fuad Tarverdi to make it six wins from six. Job done in the ring; now for the job of constant networking outside of the ring.
"After the fight I was standing with a journalist and there was an old man tapping my shoulder, I turned around to see this well-dressed British man, he's like 'you have potential, you're a very good boxer and you look like a star and if you were s*** I'd tell you'," he recalls.
"I didn't know who he was, then he asked me if he could have a picture so I was like 'sure'. I went to my manager and said 'yo who is this man in the sick suit?', he told me it was Eddie Hearn's father Barry Hearn. I was like 'damnnn man!'.
"If this guy says I've got potential and look like a champion and he's been in the sport for over 50 years, that means it means something."
Before the night was over he would find himself on the receiving end of praise from Roberto Duran, Evander Holyfield, Peter Fury, Chris Algieri and Prince Naseem.
"I'm close to Naseem Hamed right now, imagine, one of my idols, we have each other's numbers and I know his kids and we eat together and all that, it's mental to think about it," he says with a smile. "All of them say I will be a world champion. It's all on me, I've just got to keep doing what I'm doing right now."
Samreen deems himself a 'hustler'. Strip boxing and his move to Dubai away and he maintains he would have made something of himself in spite of restricted opportunity in Jordan. As for the nation that he represents, he describes a country of varying environments from forests to mountains to beaches to desserts, a 24/7 working country with an expensive 'dark side' that presents obstacles to those that seeking to make money.
He says you are one of two things in Jordan - rich or poor, with little in between.
"The only way you make it is if you make money outside and bring it back to Jordan and work yourself up, or you're a thief, or you were born rich," he laughs.
"A lot of people say Dubai is expensive, but then again you're making money in Dubai and if you make money you're happy to spend it. If you don't make money you can't spend it.
"In Jordan when I look back, how would you ever live over there? I can't believe how people can manage in Jordan? It's the like the UK but probably worse."
Samreen admits the hard work of his dad put his family in a comfortable position financially for much of his childhood, the death of his grandfather and birth of a sister and another brother providing some added strain at various stages later in life. He too attributes his exceptional English to the teachings of his dad in an Arab-speaking country, along with watching English movies and listening to English music. His dad has championed the boxing aspirations of Samreen as much as anybody.
"He made sure we had nothing to worry about and me and my brother could just focus on training because he had this vision and believed in us," he says. "He made sure even if he had to sell his own trousers he would have to make sure me and my brother could train."
He sought to look after Samreen, and now his son is intent on returning the favour.
"I'm grateful because now it's my time to take care of my family," he said. "It's a circle, they take care of you then you take care of them. You've got to do it."
Samreen is eyeing a return to the ring sometime between May and June Ramadan is over, with his sights set on fighting for an Intercontinental title next year.
First Jordanian professional. First Jordanian world champion? Let's see.