Scottish title hopeful Fraser Wilkinson says he’s comfortable with move up to middleweight and benefiting from coaching from sports scientist Andrew Usher who has worked with multiple world and British champions
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A Scottish title fight at a heavier weight lies in store for Moray boxer Fraser Wilkinson - and he says it has been a natural move.
Wilkinson (23), a former Scottish champ at super welterweight, takes on Airdrie’s Ben McGivern for the vacant Scottish middleweight belt at Elgin Town Hall on Saturday night.
It’s the Elgin Amateur Boxing Club product’s tenth professional bout and his first at middleweight, a scheduled ten round fight in front of what will be a partisan Moray crowd.
Wilkinson revealed how he has been working with sports scientist and physiologist, who has geared up former world champions for title fights and advised a series of elite sporting professionals.
“I do a lot of work at Abertay University with Andrew Usher who is my strength and conditioning coach,” he said. “I have been religiously been since I moved to Aberdeen.
“As you can imagine the amount of training I am doing now compared to what I was doing in Elgin, I have just grown up and I am sized up to where I am, just naturally getting bigger.
Some boxers and MMA fighters maintain their weight with water cuts, where they dehydrate themselves and reduce salt and carbs to shed valuable pounds.
It’s not a method that Wilkinson, who is trained by Northern Sporting Club brothers David and Matty McAllister and promoted by Kynoch Boxing Scotland, will adopt with his team.
“David likes you to fight at the weight you are and Andrew stands by it. He’s been working with the likes of Josh Taylor, he has worked with top athletes.”
“All those water cuts can take time off your career and time off your life essentially so we all fight just at the weight we are.
“With the change of weight overall, my manager Sam Kynoch came to me and I was looking to do an eight-round fight, but I realised that the middleweight title was vacant and I was sitting heavier and a lot stronger so we decided to go for it.”
Title fights must be over ten rounds and Wilkinson went the distance before when he defeated Arbroath’s Corey McCulloch for the Scottish super welterweight in December 2022.
Their rematch in Dundee proved to be ‘Wilko’s only loss so far as McCulloch gained revenge with a technical knockout in the fifth.
The Moray man says his training has him fully geared towards another ten-round scrap if required.
“I have never seen my family so excited about a fight before. They can all see how much I have put into this one,” he said.
“I am in the gym every morning and I’m back in there until half eight at night. I have been up and down the country training and sparring boys.
“This is a ten round fight and all my sparring has been over 12 rounds and I am managing them, no problem. I am fitter than I have ever been so I am fully ready and it was 15 rounds on Saturday I would be ready for it.
“With David in my corner there’s part of me that feels invincible. I truly believe everything he’s telling me and the chemistry we’ve had over the last few months has really grown, so I am in a great place right now.”
Wilkinson knows he will have the home crowd behind him, and said that support helped him defeat McCulloch in his last Elgin bout - but it won’t be a distraction to his mission to claim another belt.
“I will be focused, I just want to get the job done and that’s all that will be on my mind. Everybody is talking about celebrating afterwards and that’s not on my mind at all. All I am focused on is getting in there and getting another title around my waist.
I’m not someone that gets too carried away by the crowds. That last time in Elgin, it made the difference, 100 per cent. I came on strong at the end because you could hear them roaring and raving.
I’m sure that will be the case this time as well. You hear it when you land the punches for sure but you’ve got to be professional about it, you can’t let it get into your head too much. The game plan is there and you’ve just got to stick to it.
