Champion Rose is primed for New Year ring return

Blackpool boxer Brian Rose has joined up with a new trainer, Haroon Headley, as he plots a return to the ring in the New Year.
Rose - with new trainerRose - with new trainer
Rose - with new trainer

Rose, the former British super welterweight champion, has been weighing up his options since losing to Jack Arnfield in Manchester in March after which he split with his long-time trainer, Bobby Rimmer.He has tried several gyms since then as he decides on the direction of his boxing career; now after a week spent with Headley at his gym in Trafford Park, Rose has decided to link up permanently.Headley recently trained Chorley’s Jack Catterall to win the British super-lightweight title when he defeated Tyrone Nurse.Rose said: “I am looking to be fighting again in the New Year, probably some time in February.“Haroon’s gym is really buzzing at the moment, with Jack Cattterall just having won the British title.“There are plenty of hungry young lions boxing there and I really like that atmosphere. I have tried a few gyms since I left Bobby and I feel happy there.“Haroon has said that he wouldn’t have agreed to train me if he didn’t think I had a future. He wouldn’t train me if he didn’t believe that.“I won’t go in to a title fight straightaway – there are people around who want to fight me because I am still a big name – but I will probably start with a six-rounder.”Rose says that his appetite for the sport is as strong as ever in career which saw him scale the heights at domestic level and make an unavailing bid to win a version of the world title when he was defeated by Demetrius Andrade in Brooklyn in the summer of 2014.Now 32, Rose has won 29 fights, suffered five defeats and contested one draw.He said: “I have won the Central Area title, the English title, the Lonsdale Belt outright and the World Boxing Organisation inter-continental title, so my record breaks for itself and anything else that I achieve from now on I regard it as a bonus.”Away from the ring, Rose has been running his own gym in Blackpool town centre.He said: “That may have been a distraction to me in the past, but it is running well and that means I can train away from Blackpool, which suits me better.”

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