On Saturday night, Atang (4-0, 4 KOs) fights for the fifth time as a professional and the 2024 World Boxing under-19 champion is steadily becoming more at ease in the ring.

Importantly, he is also becoming more comfortable outside of it.

Weeks and months of tactical planning and hard training can unravel in the final few days before a fight and learning how to handle media duties, face-offs, fight day nerves and those final, quiet moments in the dressing room are also crucial parts of a young boxer’s development.

Some fighters hate the fight week circus and navigate their way through it on autopilot. Atang isn’t one of them. He is starting to enjoy the process.

“I genuinely do. I think that's probably because I'm not making weight or anything so I know people probably won't like it but for me, I just embrace it all. It adds to the excitement of the Saturday night,” he told The Ring.

“It's building experience in other areas. Obviously, we’ll get more experience in the ring as well once we get more rounds but it's the stuff outside of it, that's where we're learning, so it's not a shocker down the line.”

This weekend, Atang will tick two more boxes when fighting his fellow Yorkshireman in Dan Garber (11-6, 2 KOs). The 40-year-old marks his first southpaw opponent over six rounds, having contested four-rounders prior.

Although Atang has been busy since turning professional in July, he has also had to deal with a frustrating injury lay-off.

He suffered a damaged hand after his second fight, vanishing from sight for three months. The frustrating period forced him to concentrate on improving different parts of his game but also taught a useful lesson in patience.

“I was definitely in the gym but struggling a lot because I was one-handed for quite a while,” he said. “I fractured my hand and so - mentally - it definitely played on me because I was just doing non-stop, one-handed stuff.

“As a boxer, you want to be doing it properly. You want to be sparring, learning all the time but we just worked with what we could.

“I was doing my S&C and stuff, barely. I couldn't even pick up a weight, bar or anything because I had just no strength in my hand at all.

“It was almost like the boxing became second because I couldn't do it properly. Once I was back punching again, it felt so good.”

Atang picked up right where he left off after the enforced break and has since scored stoppage wins over Baba Yusuf and Amine Boucetta.

He weighed in at 236 pounds for last month's third-round stoppage of Boucetta - 10 pounds heavier than he was for his professional debut - and looked noticeably thicker and stronger.

Atang stands 6-feet-6 tall and does carry power but he is also quick, busy and creates his own openings by using feints and clever footwork.

Still growing, he will only get bigger and stronger as the years pass but the teenager is determined that he will never sacrifice his speed and smoothness.

“My coach Ashley Martin has always drilled this into me,” Atang said.

““That’s your asset, you keep that. Don't worry about trying to go down to UltraFlex and start banging biceps, becoming massive. You’ll end up falling into everyone else's category. Stay in your own lane, stay movable, stay fluid. Fitness is key, if you can just do that and box like a lighter weight, that'll be hard to keep up with.”

“It's all good being big, strong, powerful and just punching in front of them but if you can hit them from different angles, be there and then when they're throwing the shots, suddenly you're not there. It's mentally breaking them.”