A broken hand in the third round of his 10-round professional fight left Beerwah boxer Liam Pope in pain but he refused to throw in the towel.
The bantamweight, who not only broke his hand but suffered nerve damage, said he was more concerned at losing, than the physical injuries.
“I don’t like losing so I kind of feel like I let a few people down as well, but also had a lot of support there,” the 27-year-old said.
“I’m not one of those people to just give up, even if I’ve got one arm, I’ll fight to the finish.”
Pope who is in forced rehabilitation following the break has already turned his attention to the future with a rematch firmly in his sights.
“It would be good to get a rematch and right my wrongs and get some revenge,” he said.
“I’m hoping we can, there’s been talks of it and I know Fox Sports want the rematch as well.”
Although Pope believed the result was fair, it was his first professional loss in four fights.
“It’s been tough at times, but I’m just lucky I got a good team behind me at hinterland and a good family so it kind of softened the blow a lot for me,” he said.
“When you lose you find out who your real supporters are, who your real friends are.”
Liam as been fighting ever since he watched a family friend compete for an Australian amateur title in Sydney when he was 15.
And the rest in history.
“He fought and he won, and I got back home and was straight away to my parents, let’s go to the gym, let’s go to the boxing gym and from that first day that I started I’ve never looked back,” he said.
Pope said although he doesn’t want to be the best boxer in his division, he does want to fight the cream of the crop.
“I’m quite realistic with my goals, I don’t really want to be a world champ or anything like that,” he said.
“I want to just fight the best guys and see how far that takes me, there are a lot of people who take the easy road… I just want to have good, hard fights, and fight the best guys out there.”