The 23-year-old Londoner is the only boxer in the world sponsored by Rockstar Games, the famous creators of the GTA series.

The left-field link came through his manager and trainer, George Groves, who has a personal relationship with the gaming giants. Although Roehrig didn't book himself a place in GTA VI, he hopes to establish himself enough to appear in the next one.

“I wish I was in this game,” he told The Ring. “Who knows if it all goes well, I’ll be world champion when GTA 7 comes out, and I’ll be big enough for a proper feature in that.

“But I think everybody has the same response when they see that I’m sponsored by Rockstar Games. They're a bit surprised and think it’s crazy, that's mad, especially given the history that Rockstar Games has. I think GTA has made a lot of childhoods and people have spent their adolescence playing that game.”

It's been a famously long wait for GTA fans, given that GTA V came out in September 2013. But with a release date for GTA VI confirmed for later this month, one of the longest development cycles in gaming is set to come to an end.

Before we get GTA VI, however, Roehrig (9-0, 5 KOs) will make his Zuffa Boxing debut on Saturday night when he takes on Connal McDonald (5-1, 1 KO) as part of the main Sky Sports broadcast for the event headlined by Chris Billam-Smith against Chev Clarke at Copper Box Arena.

“We've been waiting so long for that game to come out that it’s become a meme,” says Roehrig, who is wearing a Rockstar Games hat during the interview. “And it’s funny that I fight November 7 and then GTA comes out just after that. 

“There's going to be a lot of uproar, and I'll be jumping on that too, jumping on that whole wave and trying out the game for the next month or so. “But it's been so cool to meet the people that make the game. It's crazy how there's that little merge between the boxing world and that gaming world. They're both similar in the fact that they've got to work so hard to get this game across. They've put billions of pounds and hours and hours and hours to create something magical. It’s exciting.”

Groves added: “We actually pushed Zuffa quite heavily to get this show on this week so that we could just focus on playing GTA for the rest of the month.”