All fighters are tough. Just walking up those four steps to the ring proves that. Yet Murodjon Akhmadaliev might be a little tougher, something that may come as a surprise to those who only see his relative youth and just seven fights on his pro record.

“I might be young, I’m just 25, but I’ve been grinding for all my life,” said Akhmadaliev through translator Aliko Frolov. “Sixteen years I’ve spent in the gym, breaking sweat. I had my nose broken, I’ve had blood all over my face, my ribs were broken, my fists were broken and I’ve been working for it all my life. Trust me, on January 30, I will put my all into this fight to get the victory.”

This Thursday, January 30, Uzbekistan’s Akhmadaliev will face Daniel Roman for the WBA and IBF junior featherweight titles. At 27-2-1, Roman has a huge advantage in pro experience over “MJ,” but this isn’t the same boxing world where fighters need to get to 25-30 fights against lesser competition to get in the championship conversation.

“Look at the opponents we’re beating in our first fights, who we’re fighting against, how we beat them, and that tells you everything,” said Akhmadaliev. “And Uzbek boxing always was more of a professional style of boxing. I have 350 amateur fights and more than a hundred knockouts, so I know how to hurt people with big gloves. I always had more of a professional style. That’s why I’m positive that I’m ready for this challenge.”

If Akhmadaliev leaves Miami with two belts, he will join Leon Spinks as the only male fighters to become a unified world champion in just eight pro fights, but he will be only the latest in recent years to wear gold so soon, something he attributes to changes in the amateur game where he won a Bronze medal in the 2016 Olympics.

“Nowadays, amateur boxing is very different from what it used to be years ago when people were taking 25-30 fights as a pro to fight at this level,” he said. “Now, amateur boxing, there’s no headgear, they have World Series of Boxing, and the scoring system is different, so the guy that looks better wins the round. And high level amateur boxers these days are not that far from professionals. You can see my close friend Dmitry Bivol, he became world champion in his seventh fight. He’s probably the best that I know, but there are also guys like (Artur) Beterbiev who became champion also. And there’s Loma (Vasyl Lomachenko) and (Oleksandar) Usyk, but we’re not talking about them because they’re the highest level. But the rest of our guys, you can see that we’re just a different breed.”

Akhmadaliev also mentions his countrymen Israil Madrimov and Bek Melikuziev (2016 Olympic Silver medalist) as examples of the new breed of contender, and the trio have been making quite a lot of noise in the boxing biz Stateside while training in Indio. Considering that it’s 31 degrees in Uzbekistan at the moment, the Namangan native is pretty happy with the weather in Southern California, but as he points out, “as far as training camp, yes, the weather here is better for training camp. But in Uzbekistan, it’s funny, but it’s cold in winter but it’s 120 in summer. It’s hotter than in Indio.”

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Weather extremes aside, Akhmadaliev has not forgotten his home while training abroad. Far from it, as he makes it a point to take the trip back whenever he can. And he’s got his tickets for a trip to Uzbekistan as soon as this week’s fight is over.

“The plan is to take two belts and go home after this fight,” said Akhmadaliev, whose nation is firmly behind him and his compatriots as they chase world championships.

“Uzbeks are special people,” he said. “They are huge boxing fans like Mexican people. They love boxing more than any other sport, and they’ve been very supportive of us as boxers. We have huge followings, we have huge support from the government and the support and the love of the people is amazing. They’re praying for us every time we fight, and it’s special.”

All that’s left is the fight, and Akhmadaliev’s showdown with Roman is one of the most highly anticipated of the new year among hardcore fans. But no one’s more eager for the opening bell than “MJ,” who was supposed to face the LA product last September before an injury to Roman forced a postponement.

“Hopefully, both of us will make it safely to the fight without any emergency happening and we’ll give people a great fight,” said Akhmadaliev. “I knew that I was going to fight Roman since I was a mandatory for a little more than a year now. So I knew that at some point I would fight him because my team told me they would do everything possible to fight him. We didn’t know when it was gonna happen and we knew it would take time to make it happen to make them fight us even though we were the mandatory. But it’s all been in God’s plan and now I’m fighting for two world titles.”

He pauses, and then, without prompting, he gives his forecast for Thursday in Miami.

“I’ll give it all to take the belts away from him and I promise it’s going to be an exciting war.”