A young man wanders into a boxing gym bearing a cape of bravado woven by the sight of Rocky Balboa challenging Apollo Creed on the silver screen.
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Quinten Brown had seen it all before. Most last a session or two and never come back. But Ben Dencio was different.
"He reckons he didn't watch Rocky, but to me, I meet guys over the years who watch too many Rocky movies so they get a bit of false bravado," Brown said.
"He was initially one of those sort of guys and he soon realised he had a fair bit to learn. But he has always had a lot of heart and a lot of self-belief.
"I took him to national titles and he had only had four amateur fights. Normally you wouldn't take someone away to fight people that have had 40 or 50 fights for their fifth fight.
"But with Ben, I knew psychologically it would be something he would be able to handle and focus on, it wouldn't scare him off. He rose to the occasion and won a round off the guy favoured to win the whole tournament.
"From there we thought 'okay, he's in it for the long haul'. He has trained hard and fought hard ever since."
Almost 10 years on Dencio (7-2) will have the ANBF Australasian super featherweight title wrapped around his waist should he account for Sachin Mudaliar (7-1) at the Hellenic Club of Canberra on Friday.
The Capital Fight Show 17 headliner is leaving no stone unturned in his bid to claim the regional belt and climb up the rankings.
Because put simply, Dencio has "a point to prove" after being controversially stopped in his last bout for the ANBF Australian strap.
There has never been a better chance to do so with Dencio entering the ring on the back of a seamless training camp for the first time in recent memory.
"It's one of the few times I haven't been injured or haven't had a sickness close out. As far as training camps go, this one has been a good one," Dencio said.
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"Before my NSW title defence [last year] I rolled my ankle pretty bad so I could hardly walk on it over the 10 days before the fight. It was pretty bad so I had to strap it pretty heavily that night.
"I normally get something, it doesn't matter what it is. It could be an injury in the neck from being hit, or my shoulders are pretty sore sometimes because of training and working.
"There's always something, and this time there hasn't been anything."
So the focus has been razor sharp - but not until Thursday night does attention turn to his Fijian rival.
First comes the weigh-in, at which point Dencio was not able to tip over 58.97 kilograms. That is goal one. The next? Claiming the title.
"It's little steps, little goals. The first thing you've got to do before the fight is make weight, so I look at that," Dencio said.
"Once weight is made then I start thinking about the fight. I am obviously training for the fight and there are times where I switch on. But up until I finish weighing in, it's about weight.
"I plan on putting on a good show and hopefully finishing off in a good way to prove the last fight shouldn't have ended the way it did.
"I'm planning on coming out and making that massive point, that what happened last fight definitely wasn't the right decision."
Caden Helmers
Caden Helmers is a sports journalist for The Canberra Times.
Caden Helmers is a sports journalist for The Canberra Times.
