Matt Maher: No media darling – but Sam Eggington is a savage fighting talent

“What would I say to him now?” he ponders. “Rethink your plans, probably!”

He’s kidding, of course. More than a decade on from the photo being taken, when a then 18-year-old Eggington stood on the threshold of his professional boxing career, he looks back with no regrets.

“Everything I set out to do back then, I have done, with a cherry on top,” says a man who first turned pro to provide a better life for his newborn son, believing he might one day be good enough to challenge for a British title.

On both counts, it is already mission accomplished. Eggington, now a 30-year-old father-of-three, owns his own home and tonight faces Germany’s Abass Baraou for the chance to become a two-weight European champion.

“Whatever happens next, I’ve already won,” he remarks.

That is not to suggest Eggington, who has previously held British, Commonwealth and the IBO world title, has lost any hunger.

On the contrary, in recent weeks the usually placid Stourbridge fighter has positively bristled at those putting forward the theory that, now 42 fights in, his career has entered the final stretch.

“I honestly don’t know what people want me to say?” declares ‘The Savage’, during a chat at Telford International Centre, where the super welterweight contest with Germany’s Baraou will be screened live by Channel 5.

“I feel like people want me to say I feel like s***, that I’m getting old and have had too many fights.

“But I don’t feel like that. I feel okay. To be perfectly honest, I feel like I am in my prime.”

Where Eggington can agree with many observers is the sense for all his success, he remains rather overlooked and arguably British boxing’s most contradictory fighter. If you know him, you love him. If you don’t know him, well, you don’t know him.

A two-time fight of the year participant, whose resume includes eight wins against previously unbeaten opponents and an IBO world title, Eggington this week placed second on a list of the nation’s most entertaining fighters compiled by Boxing News.

Yet it was only a few months ago Jon Pegg, the trainer who has been with him every step of his career, claimed to have been told by a broadcaster his fighter wasn’t “fan-friendly” enough for their televised bill.

“I do feel a bit under-appreciated at times,” admits Eggington. “On the other hand, so long as everyone in my house is eating well and is happy, I don’t really care.”

Eggington would be the first to concede he is in some respects his own worst enemy. Though far from media unfriendly, in a sport which is all about promotion he’ll never be a darling.

In a typically unfussy, West Midlands way, Eggington just gets on with the job. Within half-an-hour of knocking out Joe Pigford last May, a performance which surely confirmed there is plenty left in the tank, he and Pegg were in the car heading home.

“I’ve never been a back-slapper,” says Eggington. “I’m not one for walking around, shaking people’s hands.

“After a fight I’ll go and see the people who’ve come to watch me, thank them for their support. Then I’m off.”

It is the same after defeats, of which there have been eight.

“I think I was born in the wrong era, that is what it is,” he says. “I should have been around in the 70s and 80s when the big O and staying undefeated wasn’t such a major thing.

“No-one wants to lose these days and if they do, some of them retire and fade into the distance. Not me mate.

“I have won some and I have lost some but I have always gone back to the gym the next week with the same smile on my face.”

You can’t help but wonder whether Eggington’s honesty doesn’t make people just a little uncomfortable too? No matter how much you might romanticise the noble art, the plain truth is anyone who ever sets foot in a boxing ring is there to make money.

Eggington is just more brazen and unapologetic about it than most, rightly proud of what he has achieved for his family. When he began his career, he and partner Charlotte were living above a shop with their baby son Layton.

Thanks in large part to boxing, Eggington describes life as now being “comfy” for the trio, who have since been joined by Layton’s younger siblings Lai and Laila.

His almost journeyman approach to the sport, where the only important questions are who am I fighting, when and how much am I getting paid, remains unaltered.

Eggington’s decision to travel to Australia to defend the IBO crown he won in 2022, for instance, might have raised eyebrows. Even more so when he lost a split-decision to Dennis Hogan. Yet the payday which helped him pay off the mortgage, made it more than worthwhile.

“I am still trying to make money now. The goal has not changed,” he says.

“The belts bring more dough so you have to get those to move up. But if you offered me a world title fight for £500,000, or a fight without a world title for £1million or even £700,000, then I’m taking the second option every time.

“The belts don’t pay the bills and they certainly don’t feed anyone.”

Eggington gives a shrug of the shoulders when it is pointed out Baraou, a former European amateur champion who has won 14 of his 15 pro bouts, is favourite. It is usually the way.

“I could be defending the belt and they would still have me as underdog,” he says.

Neither is Eggington the man to ask for a detailed breakdown of his opponent. A self-confessed “Plan A” fighter, he admits to having little interest in watching others box.

“It is nothing I haven’t seen before,” he says of Baraou.

All the same, Eggington must concede a win tonight has the potential to open new doors. There has been talk of a possible world title shot. Just maybe it might reach the point where Eggington can no longer be ignored? For all the modesty, there is no escaping he’s a better boxer now than 20 or even 10 fights ago.

Whatever the future holds, the one certainty is Eggington will keep doing it his way.

“When the kids ask me for advice in the gym I just say work hard. Nothing beats it,” he explains.

“There are fighters all over the country who are better boxers than me. That is a fact.

“But no-one works harder than me and I really believe that. I think that is what has separated me from the rest.

“OK, I’ve got a bit of talent. But I am not British, European or Commonwealth title talented. I am British, European and IBO world title hard working. I truly believe that.

“The talent has helped but it is hard work which has brought me to where I am.”