Around halfway through this 30-minute conversation with Dave Allen, Britain’s unique heavyweight attraction, he finds the phrase which sums up his rollercoaster career perfectly.

“I hate boxing,” Allen says, without a hint of humour. “But I love it so much.”

Now 33, the White Rhino AKA the Doncaster De La Hoya finds himself once again just a single victory away from a life he could never have even imagined. On Saturday night at Sheffield Arena, Allen faces fearsome Russian Arslanbek Makhmudov over 12 rounds, not that anybody is expecting it to go the full distance. Should Allen win, there is talk of a lucrative fight with Deontay Wilder next.

Makhmudov (20-2, 19 KOs) was once considered a genuine contender for world titles but a pair of defeats, to Agit Kabayel and Guido Vianello, punctured his reputation somewhat. Even so, the 6ft 6in Russian remains a destructive force in the division.

Allen, as it happens, chose his opponent personally. Promoter Eddie Hearn had given him a shortlist of opponents for this headline event in Sheffield and told him to select who he wanted. Allen specifically identified Makhmudov because he was the one who scared him the most and would therefore motivate him to train hardest. Now, as fight night approaches, he is starting to regret the decision.

“I’m dreading Saturday,” he adds. “Dreading it.

“I couldn’t say I’m looking forward to it and I couldn’t say I’m going in with lots of confidence because I’m a realist.

“When me and Eddie sat down and decided to box Makhmudov I was over the moon and thought everybody will be so happy with that opponent. But now it’s getting closer I’m thinking ‘why on earth did I pick him?’

“People might ask why I’m saying that or why am I telling people that but it is what it is, it’s how I feel and I’m very nervous, yeah. Extremely nervous.”

Those not familiar with Allen may read such quotes and think this is a simple attempt at fight-week mind games but, on the contrary, he is just saying how he feels. Although there is one caveat: “We could have done this interview four hours ago and you could have a different guy completely.”

Instead, Allen speaks on Tuesday of fight week just a few hours before his first in-person meeting with Makhmudov. “I just hope he’s not that massive,” Allen quips.

Tuesdays have always been a special day for Allen. When he was in school he would take the whole day off in order to catch a rabbit in the Yorkshire countryside so the family would have something to eat. “My grandad would come over with his mate Stan Buckley,” Allen recalls. “Stan Buckley is still alive, he’s 93 now.

“It would be them two, me, my dad. I’d have Tuesdays off school to go ferreting, with the nets and ferrets, so we would catch a rabbit.

“But my dad was always disappointed in me because I would never kill the rabbits myself. It used to scare me, they would scratch you when they’re balled up in the net. I wouldn’t do it but my dad would tell me to do it. My dad never thought I’d be a boxer because I was so soft as a kid. I certainly didn’t want to kill things.”

Now more than two decades on from those days he has proven his dad, himself a professional boxer, wrong but it has never been an easy path.

In July 2019, three months after a memorable stoppage of Lucas Browne at London’s o2 Arena, Allen was set to face David Price. Like Makhmudov, the Liverpudlian was a murderous puncher tipped for greatness but question marks over his durability had emerged as a result of some high-profile defeats.

Allen knew a victory would have paved the way to another level in his career with a big-money showdown with Alexander Povetkin already agreed. But in the lead up to that fight, the most important one of his career to date, things went badly wrong.

“That was a really bad time,” Allen says. “I went missing for the four or five weeks before that fight.

“I had just bought a house and the mattress was rolled up. I just slept on the floor because I couldn’t build the bed. I would be chilling on the floor watching the TV all day. I would go to the chip shop once a day and eat my only meal of the day.

“Looking back on it now, it’s mad. I can’t believe I was such an idiot.”

Allen lost in the 10th round of a brutal encounter with Price, who put him in hospital with a broken eye socket and badly damaged tongue. Mercifully for those closest to Allen, the final four or five weeks of this camp could not be more different. He has whipped himself into the best shape of his life under the watchful eye of Jamie Moore and Nigel Travis. In contrast to 2019, he now has a partner and two children and, therefore, seemingly more to fight for.

“I never had a normal life until I was 31 or 32,” he adds. “That was when I started to be a bit normal and calm down. People still think I’m mad now, I’m just different, a bit eccentric.

“But there have been times in this camp where if it wasn’t for Jamie I would have just gone home and gone mental again. I want to self-sabotage all the time but I haven’t. It’s what I do, it’s who I am and I love it.

“I used to go off the rails all the time. It was bad really but I can’t do that now. My bird will leave me if I do. She would leave, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’d leave me. Knowing that is probably what I needed all along really.”

Allen booked this latest career-defining moment by virtue of back-to-back fights with Johnny Fisher. He dropped a controversial split decision in the first fight but had his revenge by stopping the Romford Bull within five rounds of their rematch in May.

Allen himself described his fights with Fisher as hitting the lottery, given the fact he was given an opportunity to reignite his career against an opponent he felt fully confident of beating. Such a description, however, downplays the sheer weight of perseverance in the Dave Allen story, which is punctuated by well-documented gambling addiction and suicidal thoughts.

“I’m very sensitive,” Allen adds. “I have no issue telling people that either. I was very lucky that I got through a lot of bad times in my 20s, really. I think honestly about how I was feeling and what was going on, I might possibly have struggled to come out the other side of it.

“I don’t really want to over-dramatise it but I feel very fortunate that I’m still here. I look back now and I don’t even remember who I was. It’s hard for me to talk about it because sometimes I don’t even recognise the person I was.

“I’m a crazy guy, really. I do the same things all the time. I listen to AI music now. That’s what I’m into. I’m a weird guy but it’s a good life and I’m happy with it.”

A couple of hours after Allen stops speaking, he finally comes face to face with Makhmudov. He can’t help but smile. “Hello,” he says to the Russian. “Your English is better than my…what language do you speak again?”

Dave Allen. A complete one-off.