The life he had built through boxing over the previous two decades was slipping away in front of his eyes and he did not know which way to turn.

“The best way to describe the feeling – was like sand," Dickens tells The Ring. “At that point boxing felt like sand slipping through my fingers, and I could not stop it happening.”

Dickens was a few months removed from a crushing defeat to little-known 15-2 Argentine Hector Andres Sosa, who had stopped him in the 10th round of what was his only fight of 2023. It was the fourth defeat of his career to date but by far the most devastating.

It had come at Dubai Studio City but he was back in Liverpool by the time he reached his lowest ebb in that sauna. “I was up all night, I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “So I had been training in Derry Matthews gym and then went in the sauna.

“I remember it was 3 o’clock in the morning, and I was sat there looking at my phone. I was scrolling through my contacts thinking how many people could I actually message now for help. I scrolled through my entire phone book, all the promoters, all the managers, nobody wanted to know. I probably couldn’t have sold five tickets.

“I was done, I was washed up. That’s how I saw it at that time, and I knew that’s how people were looking at me too.
I was self managed at the time and had been trying to get a fight after that Sosa one for a few months, but I was getting nowhere. Once I got to the very end of my phonebook, I laughed to myself and said, ‘Lord, I hand this over to you, I’ve got nothing else.’”

Some had suggested that Dickens might retire following that defeat to Sosa, but he was not willing to throw in the towel on his career, no matter how dramatically the opportunities had dried up. Instead, the born-again Christian put his faith in God’s hands and carried on training hard.

It was not until June 2024, 11 months after the Sosa fight, that Dickens would return.

And, although his sixth-round round victory over Honduran journeyman Jayro Fernando Duran might seem low-key in the context of his career as a whole, it was a win that set him on a path to the world junior lightweight title.

“That night in the sauna was my lowest low of all,” he says. “I can recognize that now. But even so, it was a learning time for me. It was tough to go through, but I’m glad I did, I learned a lot about myself and the people around me.

“When I was a kid I always had people guiding me and treating me well, and maybe I fell victim to my own ego at times. When you’re a kid, winning national titles and stuff, you’ve always got people willing to help you.

“But when I got knocked out, people thought, ‘He’s at this age, he’s finished, he’s been knocked out’. That was when I realized how many people in my life, a handful only, who love and care for me with no conditions attached.”

He returned to Dubai three months after beating Duran and registered a cathartic stoppage win against Eduardo Mancito, which set him up for a life-changing 2025.

First he beat Zelfa Barrett on points over 10 rounds in February in Manchester before his stunning stoppage win against undefeated Albert Batyrgaziev in the fourth round of their July Istanbul showdown.

The latter victory secured the WBA’s interim title at 130 pounds and, when the sanctioning body stripped Lamont Roach of his belt, Dickens was elevated to full world champion. Given the conversation he had that night in the sauna, it is no wonder that the 34-year-old, rated at No. 8 by The Ring, believes his world title belt was God given.

“I’m reveling in it,” he says. “I know it's from the Lord, because of that conversation I had with the Lord that night, when I was at my lowest low. I said, 'If I ever get there, it can only be through your will, because of the situation that I'm in now. So now I know it's a blessing and a gift from the Lord. So right now, I’m on Cloud Nine.”

On Saturday night, eight months on from victory over Batyrgaziev, Dickens makes the first world title defense of his life when putting his belt on the line against Anthony Cacace at Dublin’s 3Arena, not far from where he spent three years training under Peter Taylor.

These days, Dickens trains in Dubai under Albert Aryrapetyan, the coach who steered him to those pivotal wins last year, and is adamant his underdog spirit has not waned despite his status as world champion.

“Outside of the boxing ring, I guess it does feel different in a way,” he says. “Like if you look at a bit of paper with a list of world champions, I’m on that list.
But that doesn’t change things inside the boxing ring. Like when I go sparring in the morning, there are still people there waiting to fill me in. So I have to be on top of my game. I have to forget everything that has happened, stay hungry.

“I’ve been the underdog all my life, so I’d be upset if that changed now.”