Big-punching Jahmaine Smyle has been handed the toughest-looking test in the opening round of the super-middleweight Prizefighter.
The Leicester banger, 24, meets ex-Commonwealth 12st title challenger Carl 'Dynamite' Dilks in the always-lively knockout tournament at Liverpool's Olympia on Wednesday (March 23), which also includes former WBC world champion Robin Reid and dangerous Steel City scrapper Patrick Maxwell.
Dilks, 14-3 (5), is probably best remembered for being taken out inside three minutes by James DeGale, the 2008 Olympic gold medalist and current British super-middleweight boss. But the Liverpudlian is better than that.
Capable enough to give Charles Adamu a 12-round argument for the Commonwealth title - and looking unlucky to lose - the 27-year-old is solid, can bang and boxed in the light-heavyweight version of Prizefighter in 2009, losing controversially to Darren Stubbs.
And Smyle, 3-1-1 (3), although heavy-handed and trained by Leicester's former WBO world middleweight king Chris Pyatt, can't boast that experience, and an inside-the-distance defeat to Wayne Reed (also in this competition) suggests he may well be a chin-or-be-chinned performer.
But the heavily-muscled East Midlander's raw power and ambition means he's likely to be dangerous over the nine-minute contests, even if - the DeGale stoppage aside - Dilks has displayed a firm set of whiskers.
Jahmaine sparred with DeGale for this and said: "I didn't land many on James but it's the best sparring out there and can only make me better.
"I've got as good a chance as any and i'll take it," added the Dean Powell-managed puncher.
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