On a cool March morning in Moss Side, Manchester, unbeaten flyweight Mikie Tallon clocked in for work at the famous Champs Camp Gym and got eight solid rounds sparring with a fast, determined amateur.

This Saturday night, those same apprentices will being spending their wages on takeaways or — if they look old enough — handing it over a bar. Tallon (12-0, 2 KOs) will walk out at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium to fight Leandro Jose Blanc (8-4, 3 KOs).

The fight takes place on the undercard of the heavyweight matchup between two-time heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and Arslanbek Makhmudov on Netflix.

Tickets for Fury vs. Makhmudov are available at www.ticketmaster.co.uk 🥊💥

Tallon is moving quickly and has become a staple on The Ring cards, but it shouldn’t be forgotten that the 21-year-old is still learning his trade.

“This is our job,” Tallon told The Ring. “You wake up early to go to your 9 to 5. This is my 9 to 5, I'm waking up early, getting to the gym, going home after the gym and then two, three hours later I've got to go to the gym again.

“Since I first ever started boxing at ages 7, 8 or 9, I always said that as soon as I turned 18, I wanted to turn over. I never really had the Olympics and stuff like that in my head.

“It was always to be professional. I knew it was going to be graft to get here so that's what we had to put in.”

Lots of youngsters are put alongside an experienced head to learn the intricacies and details of their new job.

Tallon spends his days at Champs Camp under the watchful eye of Joe Gallagher, The Ring’s 2015 trainer of the year.

He quickly christened Tallon "The Omen" after recognizing a vicious streak that belied his youthful appearance.

Gallagher spends his days building Tallon’s engine and rounding out the technical parts of his game. He has also enrolled the Liverpudlian on a degree level course studying some of boxing's most ruthless finishers.

The work is beginning to pay off. Tallon has been quietly accumulating rounds on small hall shows but has come off the leash during his appearances on the big stage.

Given the chance to be a part of the Canelo Alvarez-Terrence Crawford fight week festivities in September, he dropped Mexico’s Christian Robles twice during a six-round win. He followed that up by knocking out Fezan Shahid with a perfectly picked uppercut on the undercard of the rematch between Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr.

“Joe's always sent me videos of Erik Morales, ‘Bam’ Rodriguez, Ricardo Lopez. Them type of fighters. Mexican-type fighters. They're just not bothered,” Tallon said.

“They just go and go and go. As I say, they’re nasty, just relentless. They don't care who's in front of them, they're going through them. Even if they're staring each other out, they're looking through the people. That's what I try and be like. Outside of the ring, I try and be as nice as possible. As soon as you get in there, you've got to have that switch.”

The world’s best lower weight fighters are offensive machines who are capable of going through the gears quickly and then maintaining top speed for 12 rounds.

Fall a step behind and it is extremely difficult to gain that ground back.

Fighters such as Morales, Rodriguez and Lopez are technicians and ruthless finishers, but also master manipulators who carry themselves with an intimidating confidence.

They are able to sense even the slightest sign of hesitancy or doubt and immediately seize full control.

When the time comes to start mixing with the world’s best, Tallon will need to step into the ring with that same aura and belief in his ability.

“I think nowadays it's that respect factor,” he said. “People respect fighters too much. You've just got to get in there and do your best. You don't respect anyone.

“You have people fighting against the top world fighters and they're thinking, 'Well, I'll stand off a bit.' You see the likes of Morales, they didn't care. They just went in there thinking, ‘This is me,’ and give it to them.”