COACH John Houston says he is delighted with the progress of his champions Terry Russell and Gavin Lissenden as they prepare for their opening fights of the new season on February 4.

Houston, who trains the duo out of his South Moreton gym, has been putting both his fighters through their paces over the past eight weeks ahead of the televised Queensbury League event at Effingham Park Hotel, in West Sussex.

National champion Russell will make the first defence of his super-middleweight title, having made an unsuccessful attempt to repeat the trick in the light-heavyweight division against Dominic Felix back in September.

Houston has welcomed Russell’s return to the lighter division.

He said: “We had options at light-heavyweight, but we wanted to get back to super-middle so we were happy when the chance came.”

Lissenden’s regional super-middleweight title defence against Brighton’s Andy Murataj promises to be close.

Houston said: “In his last defence against Jake Heasman, he got involved in a war and was knocked down. If he had stuck to his boxing, he would have been fine.

“I consider Murataj even more dangerous, so we’ve again been hammering the message home to keep things at range.”