Arthur eyes up return

Alex Arthur, who briefly held Martinez's belt and who is now competing at lightweight, is in talks with his former manager and promoter Frank Warren to fight on the undercard.

Arthur and Warren split last year after the Edinburgh boxer lost on points to Nigel Wright in a light-welterweight contest that was perhaps ill-judged of him to take.

Now both men are talking again on an informal basis after Arthur looked at other managerial and promotional teams and decided against signing contracts with any of them.

"I have spoken to Alex a couple of times over the last few days and he said that he had not done a deal with anyone," said Warren. "There's no arrangement yet but we are talking."

Arthur confirmed that he was in discussion with Warren about appearing on the Kelvin Hall bill, and has not lost any of his ambition, trying to persuade the promoter to find some sort of international or intercontinental title – two ranks below world level – for him to fight for.

"I never fell out with Frank," said Alex. "Everyone knows we get on well, but what happened was that I didn't want to be second fiddle and so I had a look around to see what other people had to offer, and eventually decided I should be talking to Frank again.

"I'm sure the Scottish boxing public would like to see Ricky Burns, John Simpson and me on the same bill so hopefully that will happen."

Arthur, who celebrated his 32nd birthday yesterday, is adamant that he has retained his desire to box: "I am in constant training and my weight now is terrific. I'm almost down at lightweight just now and would have no problems for a contest in September.

"I want to be a champion again, I want to fight for world titles, and hopefully with Frank's help I can get back up there again."

Warren is hopeful that the Kelvin Hall bill will re-start the buzz which surrounded Scottish professional boxing a few years ago but which dissipated when Arthur lost his world title and Scott Harrison endured his much-publicised fall from grace. Harrison was stripped of his boxing licence after incidents of alcohol-fuelled violence and in April last year he was jailed for two and a half years by a Spanish court for trying to steal a car and assaulting one of the occupants and a police officer.

"Scott's problems really did hurt the game up here for a while," said Warren, "because with him headlining bills you were thinking you could bring others through, but suddenly you lost the headline act.

"But now we have the youngsters who can get the sport back on track in Scotland, and I would like to do a minimum of four or maybe six nights here per year."

Chief bout on the undercard will feature Greenock's John Simpson defending his Commonwealth featherweight championship against unbeaten prospect Stephen Smith of Liverpool.

This fight has been rescheduled a couple of times already, and Simpson admits his patience has been tried. "The call-offs have been a bit frustrating," said Simpson, "but nothing's ever certain in boxing, and I've just kept myself ticking over.

"I've been out of the ring for more than six months now, which is not good enough, but now we have a date set and I'm happy with that. Ricky Burns and me have been doing some hard sparring and I'll just keep it going."

Simpson remains ambitious and is convinced he could function at a higher level, and maybe even become a world title challenger like Burns.

"Hopefully when I beat Stephen Smith I will get moved on to bigger and better things," said Simpson. "I have been waiting for a move up for a while, and it would be good to be in Ricky's position. I'd like to think I'm not too far off that, and hopefully after this fight I will be moved up to European level."

On the two occasions that he has fought for the British title in Glasgow, Simpson lost to Andy Morris and then fellow Scot Paul Appleby, while his title fight record in England reads six wins against two losses, so Simpson feels he is overdue a good showing on home soil.

"This will be a good fight for me to show the fans my talents," said Simpson, "and I will definitely make sure I perform on 4 September."