Nathaniel May looking to steal the show on Horn-Corcoran undercard

World ranked featherweight Nathaniel “Cheeky” May 18-1 (10) is looking to steal the show when he faces undefeated Brazilian wrecking ball Aelio Mesquita 16-0 (14) for the IBF International title in the main support bout to Jeff Horn’s WBO welterweight world title defence against Britain’s Gary Corcoran at the Convention & Exhibition Centre in Brisbane, Queensland on 13 December.

The Duco Events promoted card will be shown locally on Main Event Pay-Per-View and carried internationally on ESPN in the USA and BoxNation in the UK.

The 22-year-old boxer-puncher from Bunbury, Western Australia has largely flown under the radar domestically with the local press ignoring him and the east coast media focusing more on own their homegrown talent. A breakout performance against the rugged Mesquita will force people to sit up and take notice on both sides of the continent.

“We’ve watched a bit of Mesquita, but we don’t know how long ago that bout was so he is still a bit of a mystery,” admitted May, who is ranked IBF #7. “But we have that confidence in our fight plan and the way we’ve trained and everything, so for the first two rounds we will suss him out, then go to work.”

May’s trainer Peter Stokes, who serves dual roles as boxing trainer and qualified strength and conditioning coach, isn’t expecting an easy night against the little known South American bruiser but believes that the class of his young charge will end up being the story of the fight.

“I think it’s a tough fight,” Stokes acknowledged. “We’ve just got to stay away from this dude’s power hand, but he’s also got a good left hook to the body and head. He’s got a bit of leverage on us, so we’ll be going in and out, taking our angles and trying to avoid him as much as possible, then set him up for it, you know.

“He’ll make one mistake and Cheeky will be onto it. He’s like that. He’ll let them take their swings and move and duck if he has to, then all of a sudden – bang! He’ll know all about it then.”

The tyranny of distance is always an issue for west coast-based boxers with 4,000-odd kilometres separating them from the more populous east coast cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane where the bulk of the fistic action in this country occurs.

Last week May and Stokes flew to Sydney to put the finishing touches on their preparation by sparring WBA #11 junior welterweight Darragh Foley and some of the other talent fighting out of the Bondi Boxing Club. It makes for a refreshing change of pace from WA where the amount of top class sparring, particularly in the lighter weight classes, can be limited.

Stokes also arranges regular trips to the United States for May were they set up camp at the world famous Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, California. It is not cheap, but Stokes views it as a vital investment in May’s future.

“It was great, I can’t ask for anything better,” said May of the most recent trip to the States. “We had great sparring with guys like Ray Beltran and Scott Quigg. We had some wicked rounds with them and it was just great to see how they train, when the train, everything. It was a privilege for us to be there in their camp to work and to watch.”

In April this year May faced the hardest test of his four year pro career when he took on Filipino tough guy Randy Braga over 12 rounds for the vacant IBF Pan Pacific featherweight title. Fighting in front of his home crowd in Bunbury, May had to dig deep to defeat the rugged 29-year-old southpaw, who had only lost twice in 23 bouts coming in to the fight.

“Braga was just… unreal,” said May, whose style has been compared to Nonito Donaire. “I’ve hit people with those shots before and they’ve gone down, so I was in a position I hadn’t been in before. After the fourth or fifth round in the corner Stokesy said ‘he’s not going anywhere, so we’re going to have to stick and move’. We went back on the back foot, walked him into punches and just cut the angles. It worked on our behalf, but it was a tough fight.”

It was also May’s first 12 round bout, an experience that will stay with him for better or for worse.

“It was good experience, my first time going twelve. But I’m not going to lie, I’m not a fan of it,” he laughed. “Waking up the next morning, taking a look at your face in the mirror and wondering if you won the fight or not!”

Boxing wasn’t the first choice sport for May, whose family background is largely in Australian Rules football. As a pup May played with Swan Districts and was part of their development squad as a 13-year-old when his father, a former boxer in his own right, suggested a trip to the boxing gym to help him maintain his fitness in the off-season.

The young May gave it a shot and, in his own words, “hasn’t left the gym since”.

Stokes recalls a quick-footed kid with a good work ethic, a thirst to learn and a desire to spar almost as soon as he walked into the gym.

“He showed a bit of promised with his movement,” said Stokes of those early days. “Not so much his technique, but his footwork he really picked up quite fast. He had been pestering me from the second night he had been at the gym to start sparring, but I was like ‘nah mate, that won’t happen for a few months yet’.

“He kept pestering me, pestering me and pestering me and after about six weeks I gave in. He jumped in with a kid who had been to about six different gyms in six years—one of those sorts, you know—and I’d only just got this kid so I thought I’d test him and Nathaniel just destroyed him, gave the kid a bit of a touch up. So I thought ‘this kid has definitely got promise’.

“I think within a year-and-a-half I had him an Australian title, a Golden Gloves title and it was off to the World Championships.”

The hunger that May showed in those early days in the gym hasn’t left him. If he can get past Mesquita unscathed, he is looking forward to testing himself against some of the big guns in the always-competitive 126-pound division in 2018.

With four of the IBF’s top five ranked featherweights hailing from the United Kingdom—plus reigning world champion Lee Selby—it looks likely that a trip to Old Blighty will be in May’s immediate future.