CHADDERTON, England - Bradley Rea looked every inch a champion as he held pads, posed for photographs and handed out words of advice to the boxers at Chadderton Amateur Boxing Club

Rea (21-1, 10 KOs) was promoting the first defence of his European light heavyweight title. On Saturday night, he will fight his fellow Mancunian, Lyndon Arthur (24-3, 16 KOs), at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena. The event will be broadcast by DAZN.

Usually, these kind of events end with a Q&A session.

Rea could have spoken about his exciting win over Shakan Pitters or given some technical tips but maybe the most telling lesson the 27-year-old could have taught the youngsters was the importance of perseverance.

"Just keep going. Just don't give up,” he told The Ring.

“I've always believed that I'm good enough to get on these big shows and fight for these big titles. There was times where I questioned whether it was going to happen. I never questioned if I was good enough. I questioned whether the stars were going to align and I was going to get the backing and I was going to get the luck which is all it takes sometimes in boxing.”

Given everything that has happened to Rea, he may have struggled to believe it if somebody had told him that he would end 2025 by defending a significant title in the home corner on a major arena show.

Back in 2021, Rea burst onto television screens as an exciting middleweight and blew away the undefeated Lee Cutler inside a round. He repeated the trick against the unbeaten Craig McCarthy only to be kicked to the curb after losing a decision to future European 160-pound champion, Tyler Denny.

He spent almost three years in the wilderness, racking up low profile, untelevised wins, building himself up into the light heavyweight division and waiting for a chance.

Earlier this year he agreed to fight undefeated Swede, Constantino Nanga, on the undercard of February’s undisputed light heavyweight title rematch between Arthur Beterbiev and Dmitrii Bivol only for Nanga to withdrew from the fight with a shoulder injury.

Rea stayed in the gym and was ready to step in on just three days when Shakan Pitters pulled out of his fight with European light heavyweight champion, Daniel Blenda Dos Santos. This time, Rea made it to the scales before the Frenchman withdrew just hours before the first bell citing illness.

That show of ambition and self belief paid dividends. Dos Santos was stripped of the title and, in April, Rea was matched with Pitters for the vacant belt. He took his chance, winning a 12-round decision victory after one of the best British fights of the year.

The trials and tribulations of the past few years mean that there is absolutely no chance of Rea resting on his laurels or taking his success for granted. He will carry that underdog mentality for the rest of his career.

“Good, good, I like it,” he said.

“That's what I want. I like people writing me off. I like people saying, 'Why's he took that fight as a voluntary? He [Arthur] has been in there at the world level.'

“This is how good I am, for me. I believe that I can win these fights and I believe I can get to the next level. That's just the type of fighter I am. Everyone likes an underdog story, don't they? I like having that little chip on my shoulder.

“Those tough few years, it's given me that.

“Sometimes I feel like it's me against the world. It’s not really, that's just the mentality. I have to keep proving people wrong. I have to take these opportunities when they come up.”

Rea isn’t the type to sit back and blame boxing politics for his woes.

In the summer of 2023, conscious that he was in danger of drifting, Rea decided he needed to change his own path.

He made the tough decision to leave his training base at Ricky Hatton’s Gym in Hyde on the outskirts of Manchester and move to Blackpool where he started training with Andy Abrol, a coach he knew from his time as a successful amateur.

Rea knew it would take more than a change of surroundings or a new voice to get him back firing but he quickly found out that he was facing a major rebuilding job.

Abrol runs a successful team out of his Sharpstyle Amateur Gym and he wasted no time in telling Rea that his style would need to undergo a full overhaul.

“Day one. When I rang him three weeks before I started, that's what he said to me, 'We're going to have to build it back up',” Rea remembered.

“I knew I'd been out of the gym for a long time, been in the pubs, I'd been injured and I was starting from square one. Being in the gym with Andy and the young lads he’s got in there, I honestly felt like I couldn't box. I was at rock bottom but the only way was up.

“If I couldn't do something, I'd look to the left of me and I'd watch Jake [Abrol, 14-0-1) do it. I’d look to the right of me and I'd watch Thomas [Varey, 10-0, 3 KOs) do it and I'd go, 'Right, I've got to do it like that'.”

Abrol has altered and loosened up Rea’s style but he also helped him to rediscover his old self-confidence. Things have gone so well that, after beating Pitters and signing a deal with Queensberry, he decided to maintain the momentum by making a voluntary defence of his belt against Arthur.

Although Rea and Arthur have sparred in the past, it is probably fair to say that neither man had given serious thought to the fight actually happening until Rea had the European title fastened around his waist.

To give some idea of just how far Rea has come, in December 2023 he weighed in a pound above the super middleweight limit and stopped Adam Cieslak at Blackpool’s Winter Gardens. That same month, Arthur lost a 12-round decision to Dmitry Bivol in a challenge for the WBA title.

Times have changed and Rea believes that their paths are crossing at exactly the right time.

“Look, I like Lyndon and he likes me, I think,” Rea laughed. “We get on but he's in my way and I'm in his way.

“None of us want to lose this fight. If I lose this fight, I'm back to square one. If he loses this fight, where does he go at this stage of his career? So I do think I'm going to get the best version of him and I hope I do.

“I don't want any excuses. I don't want people to say, 'Oh, you know, he wasn't really on form.'

“I want the best version of Arthur and when I beat him, I get the recognition.”