By Ian Aldous: Billy ‘The Kid’ Dib (33-1) became IBF World featherweight champion in July and looks to build on his successful career with big fights in the future. The 26 year-old spoke with me this week about winning the title and what some of those big fights might be.

First of all, tell us what it was like to capture the vacant IBF World featherweight championship when you beat Jorge Lacierva by unanimous decision this past July?

BD “Well, basically you know it had been on my mind for a long time to capture the World title and to achieve what I thought I could achieve and win a legitimate World championship. There was a lot of pressure because a lot of people were backing me and I didn’t wanna let them down, which I did when I fought Steven Luevano (UD defeat for WBO title) but you know, I got my head down and went about my business and you know, made sure I did things right with a little bit of luck things fell into place and I won the vacant IBF World title. At the time of winning it, I didn’t really think too much of it because it was a vacant World title and I didn’t really beat the champion although I beat the no.1 contender, so it was a good win but I needed to defend the title in order to find my position as the champion.”

Just over two weeks ago you made the first defence of your World championship with a superb 1st round stoppage of Alberto Servidei. How surprised were you to finish the fight so quickly and what did you expect from Alberto going into the fight?

BD “To be honest with you, from what I’d seen from Alberto, I was hoping to stop him somewhere around round 5-round 6, midway through the bout. Fortunately for me I was lucky enough to catch him cold and he just couldn’t withstand the pressure so I realized that I hurt him early and just jumped on him and finished him.”

Looking at the featherweight division right now, you’ve got Chris John, Juan Manuel Lopez and Orlando Salido at the top. Where do you see yourself amongst these elite fighters?

BD “You know what, I definitely see myself amongst them, I definitely feel I can beat them all on the right day. Boxing is a very interesting sport and you know I’m not gonna sit here and say I’m champion of the World and I believe these guys can beat me, no they can’t beat me. It’s just circumstances of where the fights take place, when they take place and if they do we’ll see who comes out victorious. But right now, we’re in talks with (WBA champion) Chris John’s camp and there’s positive things happening there, so that’s my opportunity to knock off Chris John, take his undefeated record and take the WBA title with it.”

My next question was going to be about your next fight but you’ve kind of answered it there!

BD “Well yeah, we have a mandatory somewhere around February-March so if we don’t make the fight against Chris John then we have to fight our mandatory. The mandatory is either gonna be Luis Cruz or Eduardo Escobedo. They’re fighting soon, so it’s whoever wins the fight that’s the no.1 contender and that’s who I have to fight. From 90 days after the fight we have to come to an agreement, unless of course I can make the fight against Chris John for the WBA and IBF titles then the sanctioning bodies will give us time to negotiate the fight with Chris and then we can go from there.”

We’ve seen you compete in the super-featherweight and lightweight divisions before in your career. Do you see yourself going up in weight in the future or are you still happy to make the weight at featherweight?

BD “At the moment I’m very happy to make featherweight. I got a lot of advantages at featherweight in terms of height and reach but in time, you know that’s my ultimate dream to kind of move up in weight divisions and win numerous World titles at the different weights and I think that’s the trend that everybody’s taking these days so that’s something that I’m interested in doing also.”

As much as you love fighting in front of your home fans, do you think that we might see you fighting overseas more in the future?

BD “I’m definitely very excited about the prospect of fighting in America, the prospect of possibly fighting in England. I wanna actually fight everywhere, I’ve already fought all over the World as an amateur. When I started out my professional career I started in Australia and then I shifted to America, I had six fights in America and one in England, I do know how to travel and win on the road. I’ll be on the plane taking on bigger challenges overseas.”

Don’t forget you can follow Billy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/billydib

Check out his official website: www.billybillythekid.com.au

Like him on Facebook: www.facebook.com/billydib