After a long, hard camp, Hutchinson was days away from boarding the plane back to Britain to face Ezra Taylor at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena, but had the wind knocked from his sails as soon as he got back to base.

“I’d done my run, posted a video saying something stupid about only 10 days to go,” he tells The Ring. “I get to the house, job done, but my coach is sitting there in the room. “He told me my fight was off and I just couldn’t believe it. I was gutted, but what can you do?”

Despite Hutchinson and Taylor being ready to fight, a Moses Itauma injury had forced the postponement of his main event clash with Jermaine Franklin originally scheduled for January 24.



Rather than press ahead with the rest of the show, promoters Queensberry decided to transfer the undercard in its entirety to the new date which is Saturday.

“They told us what happened with the show but I tried to see if we could get on a different date a few weeks later but they couldn’t do it,” he adds.

“They said the show is so big that the fight needed to stay on.”

What the delay meant for Hutchinson, Taylor, Franklin and everyone else on the show was a short training break before knuckling down for what was essentially another eight-week camp.



“I’ve been here since mid-December,” Hutchinson says of Malaga. “I'm just ready to fight. I was ready to fight 10 weeks ago. I've had enough sparring, training, I've had enough all of it. I just want to fight.

“Part of the job now is keeping a lid on it. You don’t want to overdo it or underdo it, you just keep it there. I’m looking forward to the 28th where I can finally get my hands on this man.”

The Ring’s No. 9 light heavyweight, Hutchinson (19-2, 14 KOs) is a significant favorite against Taylor (13-0, 9 KOs), a 31-year-old who trains under Malik Scott.

Hutchinson is still adamant he can secure a world title shot this year despite the two-month delay on this showdown, which has meant he is an expert on one film in particular.


He says: “When I’m not training I’m very boring. I lie in bed, I play my Playstation, I do the same thing. Right now I’m halfway through Shawshank Redemption. It’s probably the 10th time I’ve watched it now because of the delay.”

It is suggested that getting off the plane in Manchester this week might feel like the famous Shawshank scene where Andy Dufresne, the film’s main protagonist, escapes the prison and looks up at the rain in bliss. 

“That’s how it’s going to feel,” he agrees. “But I’m not there yet. I will be landing, getting off the plane and getting the job done.



"He’s getting whipped. That sounds like Shawshank. He’s getting whipped.”