Leigh Wood may have been quiet, but the two-time featherweight champion certainly hasn’t been idle.

Wood hasn’t boxed since scoring a dramatic come-from-behind knockout in the seventh round of his WBA title defence against Josh Warrington in October 2023.

He was always going to fight again, so turned up at the gym day in, day out until this weekend’s fight with former IBF super featherweight champion, Anthony Cacace, was confirmed.

Wood (28-3, 17 KOs) will make his 130lb debut against Cacace (28-3, 8 KOs) at Nottingham Arena on Saturday night. DAZN will stream the event globally.

The fight has been heavily rumoured for some time, giving Wood's training team of Ben Davison and Lee Wylie plenty of time to study the hard hitting, awkward Irishman’s habits.

“You never stop learning down at the gym and it's specific to each fight,” Wood told The Ring.

“What do I need to change and adapt to win this fight? Ben and Lee say that you've got a toolbox and they pick the tools for the job.

“Some of the things I’ve had to work on really hard and improve because I've never used them before, but I've nailed it. I’ve worked on it and improved it so you might see something new in this fight that you've not seen before. That’s just down to the tools I need to get this job over the line.”

Wood wasn’t groomed for stardom. He was never supposed to reach the level where he could spend 18 months on the sidelines and then step directly back into an arena-packing main event. His success is down to perseverance and determination.

He has demonstrated those qualities between the ropes time and time again, a series of violent fights and thrilling knockouts securing his reputation as one of the best action fighters in the sport.

He also has shown similar qualities outside of the ring.

Wood was a decade into his professional career before seizing an unlikely world title opportunity against Chinese buzzsaw Can Xu in 2021. He has had to rebuild from three tough losses, any of which could have put a ceiling on his ambitions.

Wood has been training with Davison since his loss to James "Jazza" Dickens in early 2020 and is now one of the older heads in the busy gym.

Unbeaten super featherweight Royston Barney-Smith recently told The Ring that Wood’s consistency has made him example to the younger fighters.

“I always preach to them,” Wood said. “They do listen.

“Shabaz [Masoud] was one example of that . A few years ago, things weren't happening, fights weren't coming off and he was left in the wilderness. I said, ‘Listen, just stay ready, stay in the gym.’

“When I won the British title, I went back and just stayed in the gym, ticking over. The world title literally fell from the sky and hit me on the head and I had six weeks' notice. If I wasn’t in the gym, I wouldn't have been ready. I wouldn't have been fit enough, I wouldn't have got the win

“I told Shabaz to just stay in the gym and stay ready and now look at him, he's flying.”

At 36, Wood may be the same age as Cacace but both would be considered old for the super featherweight division.

Wood has been fighting and training professionally for 14 years, and although he looks after himself he admits that he has begun to think about the toll the sport has taken on him.

The decade he spent at the Ingle Gym in Sheffield taught him the benefit of body sparring, and even though he has upped the number of rounds he does since he joined the set-up at Davison’s gym and graduated to world class. He still avoids open sparring sessions unless they are absolutely necessary, relying on the quality of his work rather than quantity.

Wood hasn’t noticed any physical decline but he is aware that he can’t go on forever.

“I always take it fight by fight and assess the landscape afterwards,” he said.

“My last five fights, I don't think many of them have been even close to my age. Some of them have been 10 years younger, some of them five years, four years, whatever.

“With each year is a hell of a lot of experience. I'm never done learning. I never sit there thinking that I've seen it all and done it all because I haven't. I'm always learning. I’m always picking things up. I’m always gaining more experience.

“I think that if you've got that mindset to keep learning and you live as well as I do, then age is not really relevant as long as you're performing physically. The only thing that's given me the thought of not really being sure how many fights I’ve got left is the amount of punches I've taken. I don't want to keep taking punches for the rest of my life.

“I've got kids, I've got family. I've got a life after boxing so that's the only reason I say I'm not sure how many are left.

“I take it fight by fight. That's nothing to do with my physical attributes or capabilities, it's just down to not wanting to take too many shots.”