Collins now regarded as the toughest man in his division

STEVE COLLINS has now won 14 fights on the trot, including two wins each over such highly-rated opposition as Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn. He has therefore reached the stage where the rest of the top-rated fighters in the super middleweight division are reluctant to take on offers from the Dub liner who is now regarded as the toughest man in the division.

Without being dismissive of the qualities of his opponent in the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow tonight, it has to be said that a defeat at this stage is unthinkable.

The fact that Craig Cummings yesterday spoke of a full 12 rounds of boxing suggests that he knows that he cannot knock Collins out and is prepared for the long haul. Collins, himself, did not seem to like his opponent's good manners at an earlier press conference which would suggest that Collins will be disappointed if it goes that far.

"I always respect my opponent. There are only two men in the ring and things can go wrong but quite ,frankly I do not expect that we will be going the distance. I regard this as another job to be done; another pay day for me and then I want the Americans to come out of hiding. I will take anybody on, anywhere before the end of the year, of he said with an obvious hint steely determination in his voice and eyes.

This will be Collins' seventh defence of the title he won by beating Chris Pyatt in Sheffield in May 1992. Without any question he is now the most successful boxer in the history of the professional fight game in Ireland.

He has driven himself to extraordinary lengths including voluntary exile while he is in training in Jersey in the Channel islands where he has set up camp under the much respected American trainer Freddie Roach and where he hires the best sparring partners available to him.

For this fight he brought Mark Baker, one of the most highly-rated super middleweights in Britain and claims, with some justification that the experience was vital in Baker's defeat of Mark Delaney in a British title eliminator earlier this week.

Now Collins wants his big pay-day, or days, in a bid to unite the world super middleweight title. Firmly in his sights are the American trio Frank Liles, Roy Jones and Darius Michalezewski.

Whether any or all of these wants to get to grips with Collins only time will tell.

For the moment it is Cummings who takes up his time. He has watched a video of some of his fights and believes that he will be too strong for him. "He has a good jab and likes to move around the ring. I will be crowding him from the start and forcing him back on the ropes for some close in-fighting. I don't believe he could stand up to my strength and punching power for 12 rounds so I expect an early celebration party here in Glasgow," he says.

Cummings says his paternal grandfather hailed from Dun Laoghaire and his mother's people from an American-Indian reservation. According to his CV he too is a tough man who, on the night before his last fight was involved in fighting a fire as part of his job in Kansas City and after beating his opponent the following night was admitted to hospital for treatment for smoke inhalation.

He narrowly missed serious injury when the blazing roof collapsed only feet from where he and his colleagues were dousing the fire. He glories in the nickname of "Kid Fire".

He is five years younger than Collins at 29 and has been involved in boxing since the age of five. He is something of a journey-man in the trade in the US and has been fighting for purses as low as world title challenge when others, much more qualified than he for such an opportunity, simply refused to take on Collins.

That might seem as a recipe for a walk-over for Collins but Cummings can boast of 34 fights with 32 wins including 28 victories within the distance, a statistic of which Collins is acutely conscious.

Cummings forecast that the fight could go the distance should not be taken lightly. He and his firemen colleagues play chess in the fire-station while waiting for the siren to go off. This suggests that patience and planning are familiar to him. if he can manage to survive the first four or five rounds he might well put some doubts in Steve Collins' mind yet anything other than an early finish seems highly unlikely.