Hamzah Sheeraz was fixing lightbulbs and sockets in Eden Hazard's London apartment when something clicked. The former Chelsea winger's home was just another job for the apprentice electrician. Within two weeks, Sheeraz was back in a boxing gym. Within a fortnight of that, he was sparring professionals.

The story of how Sheeraz went from rewiring flats to defending a world title is, he told BBC Sport, built on a single moment of clarity in someone else's kitchen. He had stepped away from boxing entirely after missing out on the Commonwealth Youth championships — the sting of that setback pushed him out of the sport and into a trade. Then came the Hazard apartment, and the realisation that his hands were meant for something other than a screwdriver.

Back in the gym, word travelled fast. Professionals liked what they saw and invited him to training camps in Spain as a sparring partner — the unpaid, unglamorous work that turns prospects into fighters. His coach at the time, Dominic Negus, put his reputation behind him. Frank Warren, one of British boxing's most established promoters, heard the talk from trusted professionals and signed Sheeraz to his Queensberry promotions on the boxer's 18th birthday. Sheeraz did not actually meet Warren for the first two or three years after signing. The deal was done on faith in Negus and the fighters who had felt Sheeraz's work firsthand.

The faith has been repaid. In May, Sheeraz won the WBO super-middleweight title — one of the four major belts that govern professional boxing, and the kind of hardware that separates contenders from champions. Now comes the first defence: a fight against Simon Zachenhuber on Anthony Joshua's undercard in Saudi Arabia, a stage that guarantees a sizeable audience for the champion's introduction to a wider public.

For a fighter who was wiring Premier League footballers' homes not long ago, the climb has been rapid. But the bones of the story — the rejection, the trade, the snap decision to return, the grunt work in foreign gyms — are the parts Sheeraz told the BBC directly. No second-hand accounts, no embellishment from other outlets. Just his own recollection of the moment a lightbulb in Eden Hazard's ceiling prompted him to chase a different kind of light.

His first title defence will tell us whether the momentum holds. Zachenhuber stands between Sheeraz and the next chapter of a career that almost never began.

(BBC Sport)