Denzel Bentley is once again preparing to put everything on the line, but the exciting middleweight wouldn’t have it any other way.
Bentley, 20-3-1 (17 KOs), is ranked at number two with the WBO and with the only man above him, Hamzah Sheeraz, apparently embroiled in discussions over whether to take on unified WBO/IBF champion, Janibek Alimkhanuly, or WBC boss, Carlos Adames, Bentley could have sat back, waited for Sheeraz to make his decision and either been elevated into the number one position himself or found himself as the prime available opponent for an all-British title fight with his promotional stablemate.
Not many fighters would have leapt at the chance to take on a confident, new champion like British middleweight title holder, Brad Pauls, in the meantime. Bentley isn’t most fighters.
Since he agreed to the fight, the pot has been sweetened. The vacant European title will now also be on the line and – provided he wins on December 7 – Frank Warren has assured him that he will get a second crack at a world title. Bentley lost a decision to Janibek in 2022.
Still, waiting for opportunities to land in his lap doesn’t sit well with Bentley, he prefers to go out and take them.
“I’m not really known for turning down fights,” Bentley told BoxingScene. “It got it put to me, I said ‘Yes’ because I wanna stay active. There’s four belts on the line and, now I know, Frank’s obviously offering a world title fight for the winner.
“It’s kind of similar to the position I was in before the Nathan Heaney fight, to be honest. It’s going to be different this time.
It is almost a year to the day since an unfocused Bentley turned up in Manchester to defend his British title against Heaney.
While an inspired Heaney boxed every second of the fight as if his life depended on it, an unrecognizable Bentley drifted through the 12 rounds and lost his title on the scorecards.
Although a build-up plagued by problems in his personal life provided plenty of reasons for the uncharacteristic performance, the 29-year-old isn’t one for excuses and knows that nobody pays any attention to them anyway. He was, however, concerned about the consequences of the defeat.
Rather than adopting a safety first approach to his comeback, Bentley decided it was sink or swim time.
He stepped right into a make or break fight with former world title challenger, Danny Dignum, stopping the star amateur inside two rounds. He then repeated the trick against the underrated Derrick Osaze, taking out his fellow Londoner with one of the best uppercuts of the year.
The gambles have paid off and, 12 months later, Bentley is back where he was
“To be honest, I didn’t expect my year to go this good,” he said. “I thought it was going to be hard to get matched up. It was going to be hard to get out and get fights and I thought I was just going to be pushed to the back of the queue a little bit but I managed to get out and it’s worked out good, do you know what I mean?
“I promise you, coming off the Heaney loss, when I got back to the gym, I told Martin [Bowers, his trainer and manager], ‘I don’t want no six or eight round, confident booster fights.’”
Bentley has always been one of British boxing’s risk takers. He got his break with Queensberry Promotions by accepting a fight with the big punching Serge Ambomo on just a few hours notice, having completed a lengthy sparring session that very morning.
During the pandemic he took four hard, high risk fights behind closed doors. After beating Mick Hall, he drew with Mark Heffron in a British title fight. He stopped the dangerous Heffron in a rematch but was then stopped himself by Felix Cash.
When all is said and done, the decision to jump right back in with Dignum may just be the most important risk of his career.
Rather than disappearing down undercards and allowing his profile to shrink, Bentley put himself under pressure. He took out a respected fighter in devastating fashion and almost immediately changed the narrative surrounding the loss to Heaney.
Now he has reclaimed his lost ground, he is determined not to give it up again.
“I needed to do that to someone like Danny Dignum,” he said. “If I’d have done that to someone that no one really knew and was like 10-6 or 15-6 coming from another country, I can’t really say I’m back because it’s like, ‘Okay, but who was that guy?’ Everyone in the country knows Danny Dignum.
“They know who he was as an amateur. His only defeat at the time was to Janibek and it was a challenging fight. People wanted to see where I was coming off the Heaney loss so it was a good way to come back.
“If it had been a stinker or a scrappy fight, it’s like, ‘Yeah, Denzel’s not really the same. He’s not really exciting’ but that performance kind of shone a light on me again.
“I’m always bothering Martin, so Martin always has to bother Frank [Warren]. ‘When can I be out? When can I be out?’ I don’t want to be forgotten so I’m always going to put myself forward. I’m ready.
“It’s paid off.”
By John Evans