Ross Minter will let nothing get in the way of his pursuit of glory.

The Crawley welterweight is taking no chances after being handed the first title shot of his career.

Minter, who spent 14 months out of the ring with a facial injury, will challenge Chas Symonds for the Southern Area title in April.

First, he must come safely through a warm-up fight at the end of February and Minter has already shown the new ruthless approach in his game.

The 26-year-old has quit his job as a heating engineer to focus fully on realising the potential which marked him out as a star of the future just a couple of years ago.

Minter said: "I was rushing around working and it was all too much. I felt I needed to be more professional.

"I have given up work so I can concentrate on boxing full-time. I am at a new gym in West Ham and I am working on a few new things.

"I get to train in the morning, then rest for a while and then go out for a run. It is what I should be doing.

"I could do with a sponsor as it is a bold decision with a mortgage to pay but I felt I needed to do this."

Symonds, a Croydon scaffolder, boasts a perfect record after 11 professional bouts and claimed the Southern Area title when he beat Brett James at Bethnal Green last June.

Minter said: "He is very strong and is in front of you all the time. It will be a hard fight but at least I won't have to go looking for him, which suits me.

"It will be the first time in my career I have really known an opponent beforehand. I will study his videos, finding out his weaknesses and strengths."

Minter, the son of former world middleweight champion Alan, has had the same number of fights as Symonds, winning nine, losing one and drawing with John Marshall at Dagenham in September, 2003, when he suffered the facial injury which kept him out of the ring for more than a year.

He had been tipped for a title shot before the injury and is desperate to make up for lost time.

He said: "It will be great to fight for a title. This should have happened a year ago but I have learned a lot from my spell out and I will take the positives out of it.

"I have improved and I will go into it as a better fighter.

"Being out of the ring was like being out of sight, out of mind. Now I am going to get back in people's sight and they better watch out for me."

Before then, Minter must negotiate a warm-up contest at Wembley Conference Centre on February 25.

He is expected to face Robert Lloyd-Taylor, the Hayes fighter who he was due to meet before Christmas in his second comeback fight.

A chest infection ruled Minter out of that fight and denied him an opportunity to build on his winning return against David Kirk at Bethnal Green in November.

Lloyd-Taylor, who knocked out Ivor Bonavic in Brentford last Friday, will provide tricky opposition with a record of nine wins and four defeats from 13 fights. One of his defeats was against Symonds, whom he took to five rounds last May.

Wayne Alexander's opponent for the first defence of his WBU world light-middleweight title has pulled out just a week after the contest was announced.

Alexander was due to meet Jamie Moore on March 4 on the undercard of Joe Calzaghe's defence of his WBO super-middleweight title but the Manchester fighter has withdrawn.