Boxing: Seven-year itch will help Arthur's cause

Published on Wednesday 3 June 2009 10:00

ALEX ARTHUR says he has regained a hunger for boxing he has not had since 2002.

The Edinburgh fighter feels fit and rejuvenated after moving up from super-featherweight to lightweight and today set his sights on becoming only the second Scottish boxer to hold world titles at different weights.

Paul Weir is the only Scot to achieve that so far, winning the WBO straw and light-flyweight titles in the 1990s.

Arthur, who is in training for a ring comeback against Mohammed Benbiou in Glasgow next month over eight rounds, said: "Since solving the weight problems that cost me my world super-featherweight title against Nicky Cook, I have regained the kind of hunger for ring warfare that, to be honest, I haven't had so intensely since I beat Steve Conway in December 2002 for the British title.

"Now that kind of ring hunger is back with a bang."

Beating French boxer Benbiou will be the first step on the path to a possible WBO Continental title bout this year. If successful, manager Frank Warren will then try and match him for a world lightweight title fight.

Warren spokesman Richard Maynard confirmed: "Frank plans to get Arthur a world lightweight fight so that he can try to equal what Paul Weir did in the 1990s. Arthur has lost a lot of valuable career time due to injury and illness since he last fought in September 2008, hence our strategy.''

Arthur is so fired up for his June 19 date with Benbiou at the Bellahouston Centre that he is sacrificing a celebratory dinner to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Leith Vics Club, where he began to learn his trade.

He added: "Apart from making a very brief personal appearance, I will be training at the Lochend gym while the event guests are tucking in to their dinners.

"Being given the goal of equalling Weir's record as Scotland's only two-time world champion has really fired me up.

"My goal will be the WBO lightweight title as I know I am still highly regarded by the WBO. I'd also become the only Edinburgh world champion to win two world crowns and with my bad old weight problems at super-featherweight now ancient history, I know that I can do it."

&#149 THE Leith Vics dinner takes place at the Edinburgh Masonic club in Shrubhill on Friday evening.