Carlos Negron realizes that every fight is a must-win situation at this point.

The 34-year-old Puerto Rican heavyweight has put his best foot forward in preparation for his upcoming fight with Scott Alexander, which takes place Saturday at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California. The bout serves in supporting capacity to an all-Mexican heavyweight clash between Andy Ruiz (33-2, 22KOs) and Chris Arreola (38-6-1, 33KOs), for which Negron was a standby opponent in the event either side of the Fox Sports Pay-Per-View headliner was forced to withdraw for any reason.

With the event moving forward without interruption, Negron not only gets a fight of his own but can enjoy a ringside view of a loftier future goal.

“I’m looking forward to the main event, it’s the type of fight I hope to be a part of one day,” Negron told BoxingScene.com. “A victory over Scott Alexander puts me one step closer to more meaningful fights like that.”

Negron (22-3, 18KOs) will appear earlier on the undercard, with his bout versus Los Angeles’s Alexander (16-3-2, 8KOs) to stream on the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) YouTube channel.

Both heavyweights enter riding two fight win streaks, with Negron—a member of the 2008 Puerto Rico Olympic boxing team that competed in Beijing—scoring early knockout wins in that stretch. Negron scored a 1st round knockout of unbeaten Robert Alfonso last March, followed up by a 2nd round knockout of Rafael Rios last November, on the undercard of stablemate Luis Ortiz’s 1st round knockout of Alexander Flores in Los Angeles.

Negron regularly train and spars with Ortiz and unbeaten heavyweight Cassius Chaney, including for this past training camp.

“Carlos is in great shape and when in shape he can beat any heavyweight in the business,” German Caicedo, Negron’s head trainer insisted to BoxingScene.com. “I would love to see him with AJ (unified heavyweight titlist Anthony Joshua), [Deontay] Wilder or [lineal heavyweight champion Tyson] Fury.”

Of course, he still has to get through Saturday’s bout. Negron has made the mistake of looking too far down the road without readying himself for the task at hand.

“Scott Alexander is a good solid fighter and proved that in the [Travis] Kaufman fight,” notes Negron. “I am not looking past him as unfortunately I have done this before in my career.

“But past mistakes are to learn from. I feel great and completely ready for Saturday night.”

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox