IT is the start of a new chapter for James McGivern this weekend as the Lower Ormeau man returns to the ring in California.

'The Natural’ (4-0) will face Luis Montellano (3-9-3) at the Kid Gloves Gym in Simi Valley, California on Saturday night.

It will be McGivern’s first time to box professionally in the United States and, after a longer-than-expected camp, the 24-year-old feels ready.

A fight against Tony McGlynn back in August at the SSE Arena fell through just days out, so the South Belfast man is ready to do and plans to hit the ground running this weekend.

“I was supposed to have a fight in August and this is week 20 of my camp,” McGivern said.

“After that didn’t happen, we scrubbed it and just followed on. I wanted to fight soon anyway so we just started working on getting a fight arranged.

“I just want to get in and get the job done in a nice fashion. I’m done with the 16-oz gloves and the headgear now; I’m sick wearing it and just want to go trade some proper leather now.”

McGivern has been in California since last week and the St George’s southpaw believes the boxing haunts of LosAngeles will stand to him this weekend.

He said: “It has been brilliant in LA. Being in these gyms have opened my eyes, big time. When I’m back home, I’m in an amateur gym for sparring, but amateur and professional are two completely different sports really. You need to be in the pro gyms sparring other pros.

“Every spar is a firefight and no-one is pulling out any punches.”

A bronze medalist at the 2018 Commonwealth Games in GoldCoast, Australia, McGivern will go through the ropes for the first time since a win over Rustem Fatkhullin last November at the Ulster Hall in his native Belfast.

The former European Youth and Commonwealth Youth gold medalist said: “As much as I like to fight well and be sexy and clean, sometimes you have to go to the trenches in a dogfight. This guy is a tough Mexican. He’ll come looking for a tear-up, but I’m excited for it.

“It’s one step at a time and I want to be busy now. It’s one step at a time, but I want another fight or two before the end of the year. Ideally, I’ll get out of this one and get back into campaign. I’m ready to deal with whatever is fired at me and I want another top performance.”

McGivern has become the latest Irish recruit for the Los Angeles-based Sheer Sports Management and he’ll have 2021 WBO World middleweight challenger and Sheer Sports stablemate JasonQuigley in his corner alongside his father and trainer, Jim McGivern, this weekend.

McGivern said: “I want Sheer Sports to come away from this and feel like they have a diamond and that it was the right decision to take me on board.”