Tommy Coyle has taken a fresh swipe at Hull rival Luke Campbell by suggesting their friendship fell apart after he ‘changed’ as a person.

The two lightweights trained alongside each other as amateurs, but a war of words has ignited ahead of their hometown clash at the KC Lightstream Stadium this Saturday, live on Sky Sports.

Campbell described Coyle as an ‘associate’ in an interview, a claim which was echoed by promoter Eddie Hearn, but ‘Boom Boom’ insists the duo spent plenty of time together – inside and outside the ring.    

He hit back at Campbell, calling him ‘disrespectful’ and claims the Olympic gold medallist is no longer the same man who made a humble start to the sport.

“I’m just real. Luke has changed a little bit, I’m afraid to say,” Coyle told Sky Sports News HQ. “I’ll always be polite and courteous towards him, but I don’t think we’re going to be the best of friends, going out for a drink with one another.

“Maybe if he had approached the fight in a different light, then yes certainly, but we’ll shake hands, the best man will win and I’ll be a courteous and a gentleman as I always am.

“He said that we were just associates. Luke forgets that three or four years ago when we weren’t boxing, we were working on the market stall together, selling bubble swords to kids for a quid each.

“Now we’re just associates because we’re fighting each other. I would like to think that we’re a lot more than associates, we shared a room together in Australia, we sparred thousands of rounds together growing up.

“I just felt he was being a little bit disrespectful and I was disappointed in him.”   

Coyle plans to dish out a crushing first defeat to Campbell and jokily described how his father, a local trader, would celebrate the victory.

“I think my dad is going to increase the price on strawberries. He’s going to be running around the ring saying: ‘That’s what strawberries do, that’s strawberry power.’

“We’ve got a fruit and veg store in Hull and I’m going to knock Luke Campbell out so everyone is going to want to eat some of Daddy Coyle’s strawberries.”

Watch Coyle's fight with Campbell on a packed Hull bill this Saturday from 8pm on Sky Sports 1.