Arslanbek Makhmudov is confident he will beat Tyson Fury even if he does not know how he will do it.
The 36-year-old Dagestan-born, Canada-based heavyweight will fight the former two-time world heavyweight champion at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday [Netflix, 10 p.m. U.K., 2 p.m. ET in U.S].
And Makhmudov believes he can get the better of the 37-year-old Briton he describes as one of the best heavyweights in boxing’s history.
Makhmudov told the Guardian: “I don’t know how I will beat [Fury], but of course I believe I will win.
“This guy, he is a legend, one of the best heavyweights in history.”
He added: “Tyson Fury is the professor of mind and boxing. A lot of boxing is mental and he is a master. But boxing is also spiritual. I am going to be strong, spiritual and smart.
“You can say this is a war between mental and spiritual and we’ll see who is more successful. Inshallah it is spiritual.
Makhmudov, who has lost just two of his 23 professional bouts to date and has 19 knockouts to his name, cited his opponent’s boxing IQ as one of the biggest threats to his hopes of victory and pointed to the way in which he has dealt with Wladimir Klitschko and Deontay Wilder in the past as evidence.
He has no qualms over fighting in front of a hugely partisan British crowd of 60,000 following his points victory over Dave Allen at Sheffield Arena in October last year, and having endured hardship as a youngster before his move to Montreal nine years ago, he is not afraid of what lies ahead.
That is perhaps not surprising from a man who at one point travelled to Moscow to fight a bear.
It is an experience Makhmudov has no intention of repeating.
He said: “No, no. It was very terrible, to be honest. One of my friends make me an offer [to fight the bear]. He said: ‘Do you want to make crazy stuff?’ I said: ‘OK, I cannot refuse.’
“But I will never do it again. The bear tried to bite me and it was a good thing that never happened.”