Maxi Hughes rediscovers his hunger ahead of Gary Cully fight

After fighting George Kambosos Jnr in Oklahoma and William Zepeda in Las Vegas, Maxi Hughes will take his show back on the road this weekend.

The 34-year-old Hughes will fight Gary Cully, 18-1 (10 KOs), in Monte Carlo in a meaningful lightweight fight on Saturday night, when the former IBO titleholder is confident he’ll bring a turbulent year to a successful end.

In March, Hughes was matched with the red-hot Zepeda in an eliminator for the WBA and IBF titles.

Serious visa issues destroyed his preparations for the fight, and when he did make it to the ring, Zepeda, an all-action fighter from Mexico, set about him before he could get any kind of foothold in the fight.

Far from breaking Hughes’ heart, the whole experience strengthened his resolve to get back to world level and do himself justice.

“Yeah, the boxing passport is looking good,” Hughes, 27-7-2 (6 KOs), told BoxingScene. “I’ve still got a few more years to try and tick off a few more places like that, but, yeah, very much looking forward to Monaco.

“Like I said after that Zepeda fight in Vegas, it hadn’t dampened my spirits and knocked any ambition out of me. I think, obviously, with how it went with the deportation and the result of that fight, it just made me more hungry.

“I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to finish like that. I don’t want to go out like that, so I’m going to get back and get back to work.’”

“I feel like I’m motivated enough and determined enough to have another crack at it and get up there.”

That motivation got a real test in September. Hughes battled long and hard to earn a role on the world stage and was determined not to sit on the shelf and fade from prominence whilst he waited for the ideal opportunity to land in his lap.

He got back in the gym, and with bigger opportunities proving hard to nail down, found himself a slot on one of Izzy Asif’s burgeoning GBM shows. Wages were the least of Hughes’ worries. He wanted to shake the memory of the Zepeda fight and make sure he was fit and ready for any openings that might present themselves before the end of the year.

Greece’s Efstathios Antonas was selected as the opponent. Antonas is unknown, ambitious, heavy-handed and dedicated. All of the ingredients of a thankless task.

“When Izzy and his team agreed to put me on the bill, he says, ‘So what kind of fight do you want?’ And I was like, ‘Look, I’ve been fighting at a high level. I don’t fucking want an easy fight. I’ll not get up for it.’” Hughes said.

“So we found Efstathios, and in the first round, I was like, ‘Why the fuck did I say I wanted a fight like this? This is hard work.’ He was strong and, obviously, I was his biggest fight, so he’s looking at me, thinking I was his golden ticket.”

Hughes took the fight to get a camp and a win under his belt. He ticked both of those boxes but also ended up getting proof positive that the desire to dig in and fight is still here.

Antonas understandably treated the fight like his World Cup Final and gave him a real test. Hughes’ instincts kicked in and he eventually brought things to a nasty, conclusive finish in the sixth and final round.

“I got the job done and I felt terrible after, but I think he understood,” Hughes said. “I sent him a message after, and he said he was all right.

“High-risk, no-reward because it was just a six-rounder, but I ticked those boxes. I dug deep, stayed focused and still performed and got the job done in a very tough fight.

“Because of his record and his inexperience, people might not think it’s that good of a win, but I feel like, give him a couple of years and as long as he sticks at it, I think he’ll cause a lot of problems. That win will look better and better as time goes on.”

The plan may not have run quite as smoothly as Hughes would have liked, but it worked perfectly.

Matchroom’s Eddie Hearn had his own show in Sheffield, UK, that weekend and was seated at ringside for the GBM show. 

Only Hearn will know just how much the exciting Antonas fight played its part in getting Hughes the fight with Cully, but it certainly seemed to bring him back to the forefront of his thinking.

Within a few days, Hughes’ phone rang offering him the chance to fly to Monte Carlo. Hughes couldn’t say yes quickly enough.

“Obviously, this fight gets a good world ranking and puts me back in the big leagues, as well as Matchroom wanting two options over me after getting the win here,” he said.

“That means there’s another year of big fights, so that’s motivation to train and make sure I get the job done next week.”

Cully is in the midst of his own comeback.

A 6ft 2in southpaw, Cully smoothly rose through the ranks with a series of spectacular, clean knockouts until he was stopped in the third round last May by Mexico’s tough and under-appreciated Jose Felix, bringing his run to a violent halt.

Cully has righted the ship but has since been much more circumspect.

Last November he scraped by in a split decision over Hughes’ gym mate Reece Mould and then boxed his way to a safe but sure win over former European titleholder Francisco Patera.

Beating Mould and Patera are good results, but Cully has lacked the menace he had before the loss to Felix.

“I think his trickiness is his size. That’s obvious. That’s his main asset, his size,” Hughes said.

“He found out the hard way about having smoke blown up his arse, didn’t he? He was flattening people, but yet as soon as he stepped up that seemed to evaporate because the level had stepped up.

“What he’s realized is when you step up levels, the punch resistance of your opponents and the ambition of your opponents also steps up.

“He had a hard night against the Mexican, Felix, and obviously I’m on side with the rest of the boxing public [about Mould]. I know Reece has got a message off Eddie saying, ‘I thought you won that fight.’ So yeah, I got to see that first-hand. I’ve also got pally with Francesco Patera while we was out in Oklahoma, and he’s also reached out to me as well and gave me his thoughts and opinions on it as well.”

Hughes got a first-hand look at Cully during his fight with Mould. He will obviously need to figure out ways to deal with Cully’s size and power, but Hughes is too accomplished to waste time and energy worrying too much about what Cully will do. He is much more concerned with reproducing the form that took him to the higher reaches of the lightweight division.

If he can get past Cully, Hughes will have his passport ready for any opportunities that may end up coming his way.

“I feel like I know everything I need to know about Cully,” he said. “I know that, but what’s most important is I concentrate on myself and I do what I need to do. I concentrate on me, what I need to work on and do what I need to do to just make sure that I get the win.

“Use my experience. I’ve got a lot of experience now in my 15 years of pro, so I’ve got to use that experience and everything that I’ve gained and learned over these years. That’s what Gary hasn’t got. This will probably be his biggest fight, because, on paper, he’s not fought nobody of my caliber, so he’s got a lot of questions himself to answer.”

John Evans has contributed to a number of well-known publications and websites for over a decade. You can follow John on X @John_Evans79.