JOE Hughes believes he will go into his English light-welterweight title defence against Glenn Foot this month as the underdog.

The Malmesbury man tops the bill as he puts his crown on the line against Foot on the Lights Out show at Swindon’s Oasis Leisure Centre on Saturday, October 24.

The 27-year-old, from Sunderland, will head to Wiltshire having only tasted defeated once when facing the hugely talented Sam Eggington in a British and Commonwealth welterweight title clash in July.

But Hughes is hoping that a victory over the 2013 Prizefighter welterweight champion will be the springboard to bigger things.

“Glenn is highly ranked, the only fight he has lost was for the British and Commonwealth welterweight titles,” Hughes said.

“I bet not many other boxers would want to be fighting Glenn.

“He doesn’t bring anything to the table, he hasn’t got a title, he is a hell of a fighter, but I have been asking for hard fights.

“This will be the hardest fight of my career, Foot is a very good fighter.

“I’ll probably be the underdog if you ask anyone going into it, but that is what I thrive on.”

For the first time in five fights Hughes will not be adding a new belt to his collection.

In April 2014, Hughes defeated Bulgarian Kristian Donchev for the International Masters title, before finally getting his hands on the Southern Area belt with a 10th round stoppage of Philip Bowes at the O2 Arena in October.

The 25-year-old then claimed the IBO international title with a comfortable eighth round stoppage of Jaba Shalutashvili in April this year before out-pointing Anthony Hardy in July to be crowned the English champion.

“I was calling for that (the English title fight) for a long time and now that I’ve got it I’m not going to give it up easily,” Hughes said.

“I have won four titles in my last four fights and I have wanted to defend all of them but then the next one has come up and we have gone for that.

“If the British had come up then we would have gone for that, but it hasn’t so I will look to defend my English title on this show and push on from there.”

Tickets for the show are available from Hughes and are priced £35 unreserved or £60 VIP or visit www.kmpromotions.co.uk for more information.