Heaney is promoted by Frank Warren and knows Saturday’s show is another chance to prove his popularity in his own backyard is a strong as ever.<\/p>\n
“It sold out immediately – I could’ve sold it four times over,” Heaney said.<\/p>\n
“So win and it will remind Frank Warren why he signed me all those years ago<\/p>\n
“The only fight I will have after Saturday is a fight at Stoke City in a year’s time. No fight in between.<\/p>\n
“I get why they would want you to fight in between – to stay relevant – but I’ve explained that doesn’t matter. It would be the biggest sporting event our city’s ever seen outside of football.<\/p>\n
“Saturday is my last ever fight if I can’t get the stadium.”<\/p>\n
Heaney, who has won 18 of his 21 fights, says it is “strange” to be talking about retirement but knows his hand will be forced if a date at the home of the Potters cannot be finalised.<\/p>\n
“Make no mistake, the plan is to win on Saturday and to have that final push to give the city what it deserves,” he said.<\/p>\n
“We’ve filled up every area we’ve ever been to for the last five years, it’s outrageous.<\/p>\n
“I deserve it. I love fighting for Frank so, best case scenario, we fight next year at the ground. <\/p>\n
“Worst case, I win and say ‘thank you’ and go out into the King’s Hall and take one final bout.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heaney is promoted by Frank Warren and knows Saturday’s show is another chance to prove his popularity in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-288668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114909842446484967","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}