But we’ve got an advantage in size and it’s my job as a front-rower to make sure that it’s too much for them.”If he can do that, Sampson will not expect any Academy Awards for his efforts. That ankle, though, could earn some recognition for Best Supporting Role.. STAGE FRIGHT is a cancerous condition for a fighter. It implies cowardice and a more damning, insidiously damaging accusation could not be made of a professional boxer It suggests an inherent inability to do the job And the slur sticks like glue.

When a debuting professional’s bowels betrayed him in the third round at Glasgow four weeks ago, the young man was allowed to leave the ring immediately with what little dignity he had left. That was an accident, an aberration unlikely to happen again. But to a few he will forever remain the guy who lost it, big time.
The Sheffield cruiserweight Johnny Nelson has received white feathers through the post and lived to fight another day. But his status is currently uncertain after two bitterly disappointing non-efforts on the world title stage. Does Nelson have the bottle for the job? Saturday night should reveal all when he challenges Carl Thompson for the World Boxing Organisation championship at Derby Storm Arena.It is a fight that has twice been postponed in order to allow Thompson’s two fights with Chris Eubank. And it is a fight that Nelson, 33, must win in order to salvage even a semblance of respectability from a 13-year career that has threatened so much more than it has delivered.Nelson’s unrequited fan mail followed a desultory draw when he challenged the veteran Carlos De Leon for the World Boxing Council title in 1990. The total lack of aggression from either man was by entirely mutual consent and infuriated the Englishman’s home-town crowd.

The consensus was that Nelson, for all his talent, lacked heart enough to make the grade at world level.Two years later Nelson received a shot at the International Boxing Federation champion, James Warring. This was a chance for the Englishman to clear his name, against a distinctly average former kickboxer. Nelson had impressively won and defended the European title by the time of the fight in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and looked ready to make amends But, on the night, Nelson fled shamelessly for 12 rounds At times he looked petrified His credibility and marketability hit rock bottom. “It’s a psychological problem,” his trainer, Brendan Ingle, said at the time. “I know what needs doing but it’s going to take time with him.But it’s a strange game. Anything can happen.”Commercially dead in Britain and America, Nelson was forced into virtual exile.