Richards looks to relaunch world championship charge against Kalajdzic

Craig Richards returns to his home city of London for a crucial fight when he boxes at the Copper Box Arena on September 26, live on Sky Sports.

Richards fights Belgrade's Radivoje Kalajdzic in the chief support to Johnny Fisher vs Michael Pirotton.

The man from Crystal Palace is determined to beat Kalajdzic to return to world championship class.

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Kalajdzic is a top-quality operator who is coming off an excellent knockout win over former WBC world champion Oleksandr Gvozdyk. He has previously boxed Artur Beterbiev and knocked out former world title challenger Sullivan Barrera too.

"I think going out there and putting on a statement performance against him puts my name in a hat for that world title, 100 per cent," Richards told Sky Sports. "I'm locked in. I'm ready to do a job.

"I want to be world champion."

In 2021, Richards challenged Dmitry Bivol for the WBA light-heavyweight title, losing on a unanimous but closer than expected decision. Bivol subsequently established himself as the best in the division when he beat Beterbiev.

That is the level Richards wants to get back to.

"My story hasn't been written yet," the Londoner declared. "I didn't do all of this and sacrifice everything to not accomplish my goals to be a world champion.

"So I feel like I should get a reward. I'm not being entitled, but I feel like the work I put in, I should get something back out of it. And that's to be world champion.

"For sure, co-main-event fight in front of a home crowd, you know it's a good place to start.

"Execute on the night and we move forward from there."

Watch Craig Richards vs Radivoje Kalajdzic live on Sky Sports on September 26.