WITH a smile and a little laugh, Josh Kelly was keen to paint the picture that he doesn’t actually deserve to live up to his “pretty boy” nickname. “I don’t wax my eyebrows or anything like that, that’s not me!” he said.

That seems to be the message he likes to portray whenever asked about a look that isn’t normally associated with a young man who enters the ring for a living, having done so since childhood and travelled the world as part of Team GB as an Olympian.

It is hard to believe Kelly will fight for the seventh time professionally on Saturday night in Newcastle, in front of a near sell-out crowd of around 8,000, and will do so in the hope of defeating Australian Kris George for the Commonwealth welterweight title.

But Kelly, of Sunderland, said: “I love it, when the crowd starts to shout and everyone gets lairy, I love it. I get this switch as I go towards the ring, it’s weird. I become a different character.

“I am a bit of an introvert really, keep quiet, don’t go out much, happy to sit there with the missus. The best thing I do is go to the cinema with the missus! Other than that I don’t get out much, so to switch myself around on fight night, everything else disappears and I soak it all in.”

George is four years older and hasn’t just travelled over from Queensland to let Kelly have his big night. The Wearsider said: “I have been doing what I need to do to win this Commonwealth title.

“I feel as though, even though he has had more fights, he is a bit green in the boxing world compared to me because I have been doing it since I was a kid. I have been in people’s back yards, I have been to Russia, Kazakhstan, all the countries where it’s rough, hard, I have experienced that. To be able to sit back and take it all in in the North-East for once, I feel like I am in a comfort zone so I feel cushty.”

Kelly, 24, has certainly done his bit already, even if his big achievements to date have been as an amateur. His success, winning junior titles and Senior ABAs as well as appearing at the Rio Olympics, was not always straight forward.

Shortly before winning the bronze in the European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, he lost track of what he was aiming for by mixing with the wrong crowd and enjoying the nightlife rather than focus on his boxing. He almost missed the Olympics in 2016 in similar fashion.

His dad, Paul, steered him back on track both times, just as he did when he was a schoolboy at St Mary’s Primary in Sunderland, before he even really knew what boxing was.

He explained: “I don’t wax my eyebrows or anything, I am just down to earth. I feel as though lads look at me and think this or that, when all I think about is not trying to impress. I think that’s because I wasn’t always the popular kid at school, I wasn’t always the best boxer, the best footballer or runner. I have always had to dig in and I have been here millions of times, where I have felt sick and had to get back up.

“I feel as though when I was at school I was a little bit dumpy, always got the mick taken out of me a bit. Then one day I had a fight at school, my dad sat and watched me have a row with a kid and I came off worse because I didn’t know how to defend myself.

“This kid beat me up. I was in tears and my dad just walked off, didn’t say anything to me. Next thing I know he is picking me up form school, all the car journey there was silence.

“I thought I don’t know where we were going, next thing I know we were at a boxing gym. He knew I was tough but I didn’t know how to do things.

“At the start I was more of a brawler than a fighter, I turned to boxing even though I used to love getting stuck in. A lot of the boxers don’t know that I was a flat footed slugger at the time, I can always rely on that to get me through the rounds.”

Having gone from Lambton Street gym to Houghton, Kelly has never looked back. Now he has Eddie Hearn backing him all the way with Matchroom, and tonight’s his biggest outing so far.

Kelly said: “It feels good at the moment. I know that people are starting to talk more about me. My dad is a taxi driver and he comes in and says ‘so and so has said this or that about me.’ I’m just like, ‘aw, dad, leave it out’. It’s a bit mad but I feel I am getting used to it more now.

“I have signed with Eddie, if I had not taken the steps I have been then I don’t think I would have been backed like I have. It’s coming quicker than we thought but I am ready, we are ready, I have had this through my mind over and over again. I have had the full fight in my mind over and again. I have, like, rehearsed it.

“When we get through the fight, we will have to see where Adam Booth (coach) wants me to go next. I know there is some good boxers out there with titles, even at European levels, some tough asks. I am ready for anything. We prepare a certain way every time and we will be ready.”

Lewis Ritson, from Newcastle, will be looking to win the British lightweight title outright by beating Belfast’s Paul Hyland Jnr. At the Metro Radio Arena, where Ritson has sold thousands of tickets.