Blake won't flake out from first fight against Goulburn excavator driver, insists NRL exile

BLAKE Ferguson has denied rumours he'll be a late withdrawal from his fight with a Goulburn excavator driver.

BLAKE Ferguson, at least, is promising to turn up.

Insisting that next Wednesday night, when his fight with a Goulburn excavator driver becomes real, he won't suddenly suffer a bung hand, sniffling snoz or some other ailment which would force an 11th-hour withdrawal.

This, of course, is what the whispers keep suggesting.

Genuine boxing types, and there are still a few left, convinced that once punters have parted with those 50 bucks required by broadcaster Main Event, the NRL bad boy will suddenly be less willing to fight than even Sweden.

News_Rich_Media: Blake Ferguson is still determined to return to the NRL in 2014, but for now his focus is solely on his boxing debut next Wednesday.

Yet when we put the suggestion to Ferguson yesterday, after a brief and somewhat awkward padwork session with Tony Mundine, the 23-year-old boxing novice countered: "Didn't you just see me out there? I'm gunna be fighting."

And for much the same reason circuses employ a bearded lady, so the promise of a fighting footballer will draw a crowd.

Indeed, yesterday no less than four TV cameras and three print outlets watched a boxing session where the most impressive feature was the shape in which 62-year-old Mundine, guns showcased by a sleeveless Boxa tee, keeps himself.

Word is, Mundine senior still starts every day with a gruelling workout of push ups, sit ups and chins. But as for his charge?

News_Image_File: Blake Ferguson takes a timeout from training at Tony Mundine's Gymnasium in Redfern.

Well, it appears the 106kg Ferguson can bang. But so could the Little Drummer Boy. And there have been plenty of padwork Goliaths who, once inside the ropes, copped a par-up-a-pum-pummelling.

And while the undercard was still to be finalised yesterday - nine days out from the fight - it's understood that opportunity will fall to original rival Luke Turner, the Goulburn quarry worker who had never stepped foot inside a boxing gym before September.

A boxing newbie who hasn't even been able to train full-time for this fight because, in his words, "no one else at the quarry is qualified to operate the excavator".

So not one for the purists then.