Bouncer: 'I trained twice a day while fasting'

Bouncer has been training twice a day during Ramadan

Bouncer Play Dirty is a man of many talents.

You might know him as the CEO of Krept and Konan's Play Dirty Music, as co-owner of sports management and promotion company Wicked n' Bad, or as the manager of prisoner-turned-influencer-turned-boxer, Likkleman.

But he is first and foremost a Muslim.

"People were like 'Why are you fasting, you have a fight coming up?' and I said my faith comes first then my fight."

"If God wants me to win the fight then I'm going to win it."

The first Wicked n' Bad fight, which took place last year between Likkleman and Salim Chiboub, went viral thanks to Likkleman's huge Instagram following.

Bouncer calls it the "most streamed unlicensed fight in history".

• Bouncer's full interview is on BBC 1Xtra's new podcast, If You Don't Know.

Bouncer is fighting on the next card against bodybuilder Armz Korleone - another man with more than half a million followers on Instagram - and the music manager has spent the last month training during Ramadan.

"I'm training twice a day while fasting," he says, adding that he hasn't been pushing himself to the max.

"I'll stay at a percentage where I know I can keep my fast and train."

The fight is sponsored by The Shade Borough and I'm Just Bait, which have more than five million combined followers.

But despite the challenges that come with training and fasting, Bouncer says he's ready for Korleone.

"I'm knocking him out. Sorry, that's it, he's finished.

"I know the people he's training with but I'm going in there. It's no game, I'm knocking you out."

The boxing match will be live streamed on pay-per-view from a secret location, and will also see Likkleman and Wopke go head-to-head in the boxing undercard.

As one of the first entertainment fights to take place post-lockdown, Bouncer says it will be an "amazing moment" for the UK scene.

"The boxing community might be like 'you lot are mocking boxing' but for us it's like we're taking it seriously, but it's entertainment."

"This is what the Americans do, why can't the UK do it?"

'I could have ended up dead'

The Croydon-born boxer - who says he does so much he doesn't know what to tell people when they ask what his job is - adopted Islam during his childhood thanks to the influence of his best friend's family.

"I was always at his house when I was little, and he was a practising Muslim so they [his family] would pray five times a day."

"I would pray with them even though I wasn't Muslim. I loved the way they were, I loved the brotherhood."

When he was 17 years old, his faith helped him through an on-and-off 10 year stint in prison for attempted robbery and drugs offences.

He completed a vocational training course offered to inmates, which led to Bouncer managing his own shop and earning "an honest living", which he says "changed his life".

"Prison saved me, I could have ended up dead. I'm very grateful."

Like his faith, Bouncer's love for boxing and Mixed Martial Arts stayed with him during his time inside.

By the time he was released, he moved into the music management scene - working with the likes of hip-hop duo Krept and Konan, and drill artists DigDat and Kwengface - before returning to the ring.

Now he says he's working hard and making up for lost time.

"I feel like I'm 10 years behind everyone, so I work 10 times harder."

But for Bouncer, boxing is about more than just the physical and mental training.

Over the last year, the number of deaths involving a knife or sharp object in London increased by 28%.

Bouncer believes boxing can spread a different message to those who need it.

"Sometimes when you see a bit of negative stuff on social media with UK artists not really getting on, they can put down the knives and get in the ring and set a good example to the youth."

"You could even do a 'put the knives down' charity event."

Although Bouncer is preparing for the big event in September, he's already thinking about future fights.

And one man he admitted he would take on is Manchester-born rapper, Bugzy Malone.

"He's good, he's a boxer, so I would have to do some serious training for him - I'd have to take him more seriously than Armz."