Best of order, please, there's fighting to be done

Quinten Hann aims to take his revenge on fellow snooker professional Mark King when the pair clash in the boxing ring at York Hall, Bethnal Green, on June 11.

Hatred between the pair has simmered ever since King won £500 off the Australian in a sidestake game at a snooker club.

“I was only 16, he was four years older. He just wound me up at the time, crowded me, stood over me when I played my shots and put me off my game,” Hann said.

“I’ve always known I was a better player than him and the twice I’ve played him at tournaments I made sure I beat him but this will be the sweetest revenge.

“I jumped at the fight because I’ve always wanted to bash him up,” claimed Hann, now 26.

Thirty-year-old King retaliated: “He’s beaten me on the snooker table but this is a different ball game. We’ve never seen eye to eye and it will stay that way whatever happens in the ring.”

Just to prove it, the pair had the almost obligatory boxing press conference scuffle and had to be dragged apart by their trainers following the announcement of their fight – dubbed “Pot Whack” – at a Dagenham boxing gym today.

“We’ve just fallen out over all sorts of different things over the years,” said Essex boy King.

“He knows I can’t stand him and I know he feels the same about me.

“It’s been like that ever since we were kids when we were practising one time and he said I was useless. Then we had a game for money and I took it off him and he said I was a bully.

“I’ve never liked him. He’s got a big gob and now I’m going to shut it for him.”

King was only too ready to grasp the opportunity and take up the cudgels on behalf of snooker mate Andy Hicks following his high-profile row with Hann at last month’s Embassy World Championship in Sheffield.

The traditionally sedate sport of snooker was rocked when the Australian squared up and offered Hicks “outside” following verbal exchanges after his 10-4 defeat and, although the Devon player did not feel he had the physical size to accept the boxing challenge, King has leapt in on his behalf.

Hann has a world snooker ranking of 14 to King’s 23. Both expect to weigh in at around 13st 7lbs while Hann, at 6ft 3, has a one and a half inch height advantage.

The fight will take place over three two-minute rounds – the longest distance novices are allowed to box – on an official ABA-sanctioned club show at Britain’s most famous small-hall boxing venue and the bitter snooker rivals have gone into serious training.

Hann has joined the Dagenham Amateur Boxing Club where he is being trained by ex-fighter Johnny Mack and coach Jason Guiver while King has enlisted the services of Jason Rowland, the former WBU world light-welterweight champion from West Ham, to help him prepare at east London’s Monteagle Boxing Club.

But the ex-champion warned that when Hann and King exchange cues and chalk for gloves and gumshields: “They’ll soon learn that it’s a lot different from snooker.”