Denzel Bentley is ending the year a happy man.

At the start of December, the Londoner notched up his third win of 2024 by outpointing the in-form Brad Pauls at Wembley Arena.

In doing so, Bentley became British champion for the third time and also collected the vacant and prestigious European title.

More importantly than that, it cemented Bentley’s position as the number one challenger for the WBO title currently held by WBO & IBF champion, Janibek Alimkhanuly.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s more. In 2022, Bentley lost a decision to the Kazakh in a shot to nothing WBO title challenge and has longed for the opportunity to get revenge ever since. He will get the chance in 2025.

Bentley, 21-3-1 (17 KOs), loves boxing and relishes every victory but given the amount of early Christmas presents beating Pauls earned him, it would be no surprise if this one felt better than most.

“It's hard to explain. It's just like you're on a high for a few days,” Bentley told The Ring. “Usually we get a week off and we're back to the gym but we're off for Christmas now so I've had a week off and I'm still not back in the gym.

“You're on a high. It's a good feeling.

“It's just a bit of everything. It's relief. I don't want to say excitement but it's that joy. You're happy. Everywhere you go, you get a good reception.

“I guess professionally as well, I'm getting called to do more things and show my face places because, obviously, I'm a champion again. It's good that you just get recognised.

“I mean, I love boxing. I live it. It's what I do every day, do you know what I mean? It's a job, but it's my life essentially. I haven't really had time to sit down.

“I love being around it. I mean, that's why if I didn't win this fight and I had to kind of shy away from it all, I'd be even worse off.”

This time last year, Bentley was in an entirely different position.

Preparations for a defence of his British middleweight title against Nathan Heaney were totally overshadowed and disrupted by the premature birth of his first son and the majority of his training camp was spent shuttling between the gym and the hospital.

Still, Bentley made the mistake of believing that everything would come together on the night and travelled north to Manchester expecting to retain his title and move closer to a world title shot. Things didn’t go well. As an inspired Heaney maintained a fanatical focus throughout the twelve rounds, Bentley drifted along and lost a split decision.

Without a belt and with a larger family to support, Christmas was spent wondering just where his career would take him.

Rather than treading carefully, Bentley instructed his team to put him right back into a meaningful fight. He was his usual, destructive self in his return against Danny Dignum, hunting down and stopping the former world title challenger in two rounds. Three months later he boxed calmly and walked the solid Derrick Osaze onto a picture perfect uppercut to record another second round finish.

The tough, determined Pauls put up a much stiffer fight than Dignum and Osaze but that gave Bentley the chance to display more well rounded game.

Bentley boxed well to bank the early rounds, dug in to turn back a mid-round charge from the Cornish champion and then hurt Pauls and accelerated away through the championship rounds.

A touch of ambition, three wins and three different performances have allowed Bentley to regain the ground he lost last year and then some.

“Yeah, I’ve showed a lot and I feel like I'm getting better. Well, I feel like I'm a good listener anyway, but I'm getting better at implementing what we worked on in the gym, like game plans, so to say,” he said.

“With Martin [Bowers, his trainer], it's a fight so we work on things but whatever you figure out on the night and whatever you see, do your thing. There’s no real strict instructions to be like, ‘Look, we've done this, so do that’ - apart from the last fight, actually, because it was working so well - but, other than that, it's like, ‘Look, this is what you want to do but when you go in there, however you feel it, however it shapes up, you're seasoned enough to figure it out on the spot.’

“But I feel like this year I've just showed exactly what I've been working on in the gym in all three performances.”

Bentley is a natural fighter.

The 29 year-old didn’t have a long amateur career. He and his brother started out by picking up a pair of boxing gloves from a market stall and fighting the residents of their local estate.

Years of hard work have honed those raw abilities but Bentley has started to understand that the fighting instincts that saw him blaze through British title level still have a major part to play in his fighting future now that he is mixing in world class, he just needs to rely on them at the right times.

“It's like second nature. I see something, boom, I react to it. Whereas before, I've always had like quick reactions and stuff but I used to get a bit wild with it and when I hurt you, I tried to take you out,” he said.

“In the last fight I probably rushed my work a bit a little bit as well and tried to take out Brad Pauls but in the other two fights I was a little bit more patient, seeing little things and just reacting to it. Especially with Derek. When he opened up for the uppercut, it just flew off.

“The shot just came off lovely. Lined up, boom, gone. With Dignam, I saw his arms open up slightly and then I just went straight to the body. I'm not overthinking things anymore.

“It's like, think and do it, think and do it.”