Sometimes, a fighter needs to speculate to accumulate. Birmingham’s Troy Jones is unbeaten, has held the English light-heavyweight title and according to his trainer Lee Beard, gets better every day. He can also shift a vast number of tickets.

The 26-year-old is also a good talker but has always been about action rather than words. Instead of telling people what he can do and what he is worth, Jones has decided that it is high time he showed them.

Jones (12-0, 6 KOs) has agreed to fight Ezra ‘The Cannon’ Taylor (10-0, 7 KOs) at the Nottingham Arena on May 10th. The fight will act as the chief support to the super-featherweight fight between Anthony Cacace and Leigh Wood, with a WBA Gold title on the line. The show will be broadcast globally by DAZN.

Taylor’s profile has risen over the past twelve months and his ongoing feud with British and Commonwealth champion Lewis Edmondson (11-0, 3 KOs) has provided boxing’s content hunters with some easy hits in recent months. Most outsiders will view the fight between him and Jones as a hometown showcase for the Nottingham man and a chance for him to rubber stamp his shot at Edmondson.

Jones couldn’t see things more differently.

"It was just what was proposed to us. Lee knows - and I’ve told you before - I’ll fight anyone so it's up to Lee who I fight," Jones told The Ring.

"He thinks the fight makes sense and I think any fight makes sense. Lee knows that, so if he says it's the right fight, it’s the right fight and there's a nice title on the line.

"I guess he’s the up-and-coming kid at the minute that people have got their eyes on and I'm planning to take that away from him."

Jones has always said that he is ready and willing to fight anybody in the light-heavyweight division and has proven it by agreeing to jump right in with Taylor.

Lots of fighters in his position would sit back on their ticket sales and allow a promoter to guide them towards the top. That isn’t Jones’ style.

He is a fan of the way that head of Riyadh Season and chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, Turki Alalshikh, is cutting through the promotional red tape and changing the face of the sport but Jones believes that the fighters themselves shoulder a lot of responsibility for big fights not happening.

Jones doesn’t need to take the fight with Taylor but didn’t hesitate when it was offered to him. He thinks that fighters should want to fight.

"I’m in this game for it all. I’m not here to fanny about at all. I'm not here to pad my record out,” he said.

“I'm not in it to creep away, bypass people and I think that too many people are doing that. Look at the light heavyweights in Britain, there’s that many fights that could be happening.

“I know Turki is around now and the fights are happening because of him and what he's putting forward but if he weren't doing that, people wouldn't be fighting as they are now.

“You can't put a price on that for me. I'm in it to give the fans what they want. I'm not here for a padded record. I'm in it to fight whoever, to beat whoever and you're going to see that the more my career goes on.

“So, I'll do a number on Ezra - I ain't looking past him - and then we move on and I won't shy away from anyone for the whole of my career at all.”

Jones won’t be entering unknown territory on May 10th. He and Taylor are on good terms and have shared the ring before.

Taylor had a short but successful amateur career and is touted as a big puncher. Many will make the assumption that Jones will need to be gritty, determined and drag the 30-year-old into the trenches if he is to get the win but Beard doesn’t train one dimensional fighters and has spent long hours adding layers to Jones’ game.

Both men may have already had a decent look at each other but Taylor’s task might have become a little more complicated over the past few months.

“What works against him? We'll see, you’ll see and he'll know,” Jones said.

“He knows what he thinks he's going to do but knows what I'm going to bring as well. If he talks anything and tries to bad mouth me, deep down he knows and that's it. That's all I'm going to say. He will know what I'm going to bring.”