Leigh Cohoon almost missed out on his opportunity to fight for the UK light heavyweight title at BKFC 96.

This coming Saturday, soaring combat sports promotion BKFC lands in Glasgow, Scotland, for the first time in the promotion’s history with BKFC 96.

The event was scheduled to be headlined by a title fight between former UK light heavyweight champion Conor Cooke, who was set to defend his strap against Sean Weir. Cooke withdrew from their scheduled fight last Thursday, and the promotion had a last-minute scramble to replace him.

That was when 42-year-old British contender Leigh ‘The Boom’ Cohoon received the call from the promotion to step in on just over a week’s notice to fight for the title against Weir.

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Leigh Cohoon missed several calls from BKFC as he details ’emotional’ phone call

Cohoon has fought five times in the squared circle to date, with his next fight being by far the biggest fight of his career thus far. And at 42 years old, Cohoon realizes the massive opportunity he has ahead of him to potentially set up a big latter end to his career.

Despite that, though, ‘The Boom’ admitted in an exclusive interview with Bloody Elbow that he almost missed out on the opportunity to step in on short notice as he missed several calls from his manager who was trying to tell him about the opportunity.

“I’d just got out of bed (when I saw the missed calls). I had an early night on Wednesday and I woke up on Thursday morning and saw a couple of missed calls from (my manager) and he messaged me saying ‘Please ring me back’, I didn’t ring him back obviously, I got up in the morning and had a shower and went to work, I had another call off him and he said, ‘Mate, I’ve got a really big offer, please call me’. So I finally rang him back and he told me the news and I was like, I nearly burst into tears, mate, I was emotional, I don’t know why.

“I was dead emotional, I just thought after all this time, all this blood sweat and tears over the years, it’s come at probably the worst time, a week’s notice and I’m not firing on all cylinders,” Cohoon said.

‘The Boom’ went on to admit that he asked his manager to give him an hour to make a decision about whether he wanted to take the fight on short-notice, before then deciding he would accept the offer.

Although Cohoon is disappointed not to have had a decent amount of time to prepare for a title fight, he is trying to look at the positive side of the situation, stating that at least he hasn’t had a gruelling 12-week fight camp.

“Sometimes you get a little niggle or something is bothering you or you need to rest and go and see a physio (during a long camp)… Your mind is a powerful thing, it can wreak havoc with you especially across a 12-week camp so, there’s everything to gain and nothing to lose here so what will be will be,” Cohoon continued.

If Cohoon is to walk out of the OVO Hybrid arena in Glasgow as the UK light heavyweight champion, he will need to become the first fighter to beat Weir in BKFC, with the Scottish fighter 3-0 in the promotion.