LONDON – When Chris Eubank Jr. and Conor Benn fought for the first time in April, a 21-year-old amateur boxer from Morecambe called Alex MacMillan took his seat with the rest of the crowd at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Now, six months on, he has been one of Eubank’s key sparring partners ahead of their grudge rematch Saturday and now trains under Josh Pritchard at McGuigan’s Gym after one speculative Instagram DM.

“I basically just messaged Josh one day,” MacMillan told The Ring. “After my last amateur fight I said, ‘Right, that’s it, I’m turning pro.’ All I wanted was some experience sparring pros, so that’s why I messaged. He got back to me and we sorted a day out.”

Although that process was seamless, things went downhill quickly as he attempted the 250-mile drive from Morecambe to east London.

“I set off that morning at 5 a.m.,” MacMillan recalled. “Sparring was meant to be at 11. But then, two hours in, somewhere around Birmingham, bang, the tire goes. Pulled over and had to get recovered. At the garage they said it was going to take three hours, but I didn’t want to miss the sparring, so me and my girlfriend left the car and jumped on a train down there instead.

“I got there two hours late thinking everyone would have gone home, but Josh was still there. I managed to get my stuff on really quick and just jumped in cold and under-fueled. But I had no fear of anything. I thought, ‘I’ve come all this way, I’ve got to do well here,’ and that’s what I did.”

MacMillan did so well against professional junior middleweights Lee Cutler and John Joe Carrigan that he was invited to turn pro under the McGuigan’s Gym banner.

“Shane and Josh were watching me thinking, ‘Who’s this kid?’,” MacMillan said. “I got invited back down a couple of weeks later to spar again and then did a bit of training with Josh. I told him I wanted to turn pro, and we sorted everything from there.

“I told them about what had happened with the car and Shane said that it could have been a pivotal moment in my career. Imagine I had waited there and never made it down. In the end, I left the car there for about three weeks before I got it back.”

A few months in, MacMillan is a well-liked member of the gym, which houses world champions like Caroline Dubois and Ellie Scotney, as well as captain Chris Billam-Smith, a former WBO cruiserweight champion.

It is the perfect proving ground for a youngster preparing to make his debut on November 29 at Blackpool Winter Gardens. It was a trip to Dubai, however, which allowed MacMillan to test himself in a new way entirely.

“I was just having my breakfast on a Sunday and Josh rang me,” MacMillan said. “He said, ‘Do you want to fly out to Dubai and spar Eubank Jr. for 10 days?’ I thought it was a wind-up, but it was serious. Before I knew it, we are in Dubai getting warmed up to spar him. It was a great experience.”

As well as the time spent in Dubai, Eubank then invited MacMillan to his training base in London for the closing stages of his preparation. In fact, it was the Morecambe welterweight in the opposite corner as Eubank completed the final spar of his camp.

“Being around somebody like Eubank is so good for me this early in my career,” MacMillan added. “Obviously mixing it with him, showing that I can handle it against a bigger man is the most important thing. And I didn’t feel out of my depth. When I walked in and saw him, I thought ‘Wow, it’s Eubank.’ It’s mad to think I was at Spurs watching him beat Benn in April and now I’m sparring him in Dubai.

“But once I got in there, I flipped the switch and it’s go-time. I did some really good rounds, got some good work and came away from it with bundles of experience. He was giving me advice and everything – telling me I had good pressure, good shot selection, good body shots, but to stay tight defensively. It was great to hear that sort of thing from him and I’ve obviously taken confidence from that ahead of my debut and beyond.”

So, what does the future hold for “The Villain” MacMillan? There is clearly no lack of ambition from the man who fired off an Instagram message to one of the most successful gyms in the country.

“My dream is to become British champion first,” MacMillan said. “That’s for my uncle Andrew. He was an amateur, but he got diagnosed with an illness that stopped him, so I want to do that for him. But I want to establish my name, I want to move through the weight divisions and become a multi-weight undisputed world champion. I do believe I am going to go all the way and become a massive name in boxing.

“I’m living my dream right now and being around these champions pushes me on further. My stance is, if I’m around six champions, I’m going to be the seventh. And after everything it took to get down here, I feel like anything is possible.”