A BOLTON fighter is hoping to showcase his talents in a new fighting championship this spring.

Heavyweight Derek Porter from Westhoughton is on the bill for the first Prize-Fighting Championships (PFC) in Rugby at the end of May when he takes on Kent’s Robert Barwick – but it is not boxing as people might envisage.

PFC is labelled as "a new breed to old-school fighting" and is similar to Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and the increasingly popular UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship).

And for a man who started out in Ju-Jitsu, it is a challenge the 28-year-old is relishing.

Porter told The Bolton News: “I cannot wait to be honest – it is going to be a good night in Rugby for the first show.

“My background is in MMA so this new Prize-Fighting Championship is going to be a great experience.

“I started off as a 10 year old in Ju-Jitsu and was once the youngest black belt in Britain.

“This is new but a throwback to the old style of fighting – not as much like modern-day boxing.

“Training is already underway – I train five days a week.

“I am at the DW gym three days and on Tuesdays and Thursdays I work out at Horwich Boxing Club.”

Porter is not only fighting on the bill in Warwickshire on May 30, he is also a chief executive of PFC alongside former semi-professional rugby league player Colin Wood.

It has been organised in partnership with the Malta Boxing Commission and UK Elite Combat Management.

And as well as the new brand of boxing on show, there will also be an opportunity for ex-vet David Iain Baird who is an amputee boxer going for a chance to turn professional.

For Wood it is just as important to mix able-bodied and disabled boxers on the same bill after he was diagnosed as going blind.

He said: “It made me realise that we need to have fights on the same bill and give disabled people a chance to compete on the same level.

“I designed the first wheelchair where you do not need your hands so amputees like David can box and we are having another show in October for wheelchair boxing.

“As far as the PFC goes, it is exciting times to get the first sanctioned event for something like 20 years.

“It uses the first one-ounce gloves and hopefully will prove the first of many events like this.

“It is like BKB (British Knockout Boxing) but I would like to think it is going to be better.

“There are many different events out there like BKB and UFC which are more like old-school fighting but this is a new breed to that.”