British lightweight champion, Louie O’Doherty, couldn’t think of anything worse.

“I've never owned my own console,” he told The Ring.

“I'm one of eight so we were quite a busy household when we were younger and us older three would get a shared present sometimes. So, if we got a console — with me being the youngest of the oldest three — it meant I never got it anyway.

"Once I got to like 12 or 13 and I could maybe get my own thing or start to work a little bit, I just never wanted one. I never bothered.

“I don't have any sense of achievement on playing a game on XBOX. I prefer being outdoors and doing things and achieving things more with the physical body rather than do it on a computer screen.”

O’Doherty (12-0, 3 KOs) has achieved plenty.

The 25-year-old from Essex won a National Amateur championship in 2022 and collected the Area, English, British 135-pound titles in just 11 professional fights. Last month he added the Commonwealth belt to his collection with a one-sided decision win over the previously undefeated Ahmed Hatim.

Before he started boxing, he was a keen gymnast.

O’Doherty may spend more time in a tracksuit than a singlet these days but he still coaches gymnastics and believes that the years he spent training have helped his body deal with the stresses and rigors of life as a professional fighter.

To the outsider, it seems like there are plenty of other potential benefits.

Both sports demand a total dedication to the craft for the athlete to have full confidence and belief in their training if they are to fully commit. Second guessing yourself or hesitating for a split second can have absolutely dire consequences in either discipline.

There are obviously other similarities and differences between the sports but they are best described by somebody whose experience stretches beyond being able to do a forward roll or hit a heavy bag.

“I think in gymnastics, there's much more of a role of repetition, repetition, repetition. With boxing a lot of the time, if you slip a punch and you instantly throw a punch back, it's just the instinct of working them skills over and over and over,” O’Doherty said.

“I think it's the same in that way but with boxing, the difference is you can find your own way of doing it. With gymnastics, you’re put inside a box and you have to do things how the judge wants to see it. With boxing, you can find multiple different ways of winning so there's more dimensions to the sport.

“I would say the whole idea of gymnastics is you're working a skill.

“Let’s take the pommel horse. You start off on the floor practicing the skill and then you pull it up a little bit higher, a little bit higher, a little bit higher and you do thousands of repetitions. It's the same with just throwing a jab. You throw the jab thousands and thousands of times and all of a sudden you don’t have to think about when to throw it, you just naturally throw it with the right timing.”

The way gymnasts and boxers get to show the results of their training is wildly different.

A gymnast needs to compress their years of training into a tight, detail packed sequence which shows their mastery of technique and satisfies a list of criteria.

A boxer needs to climb through the ropes with a crystal clear picture of what they want to achieve and a well drilled plan but a boxing ring is rarely a place for set routines or rehearsed patterns.

The thrill of seeing a perfect 10 after spending months practicing and perfecting a performance on the rings or floor is one thing. The sense of achievement at winning a fight when somebody has been actively trying to stop you doing so is another.

“In terms of the flow state, I think they're a bit different,” O’Doherty said.

“With boxing, the flow state also comes with the fact that you know you've got the better of the man in front of you and that's a very different feeling to gymnastics. That's a great feeling.

“You don't feel the pressure so much when you're boxing, it's more before the fight but once you’ve won it the pressure falls off, the weight is off the shoulders a little bit and that feels great.”

Most people in O’Doherty’s position would use what little downtime they do get to rest and recharge their batteries but that isn’t in O’Doherty’s nature. He is a fan of another pursuit that involves relying on learned technique to move you forward or save you in totally unpredictable situations, circumstances and environments.

“I like a bit of climbing. I don't get to do too much anymore because it's quite heavy on the joints and the fingers so I've got to be a bit careful,” he said. However, “a bit of climbing” might be downplaying things a little.

“I do still climb mountains," O'Doherty added. "I’ve got a little, well, a big mountain planned hopefully in one or two fights time.

“I've climbed Mont Blanc and I've done a lot of the mountains in Scotland and I like winter mountaineering and climbing. I just like being outdoors really. That’s where my group of friends like to be. It’s just a little bit of fun, a little bit of a hobby.

“I like doing any sport really. If someone offers me to do it, I'm happy to enjoy it and get competitive. Most guys might go on a lads holiday. My version of a lads holiday is climbing a big mountain.”