STEPHEN FOSTER'S BRAINY RIVAL NOSE IT ALL ABOVE: Steven Foster Jnr will take on Ermano Fegatilli at Bolton's Reebok stadium

STEPHEN FOSTER'S BRAINY RIVAL NOSE IT ALL

ABOVE: Steven Foster Jnr will take on Ermano Fegatilli at Bolton's Reebok stadium

26th February 2011

By Kevin Francis

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STEPHEN Foster Jr is hoping title challenger ­Ermano Fegatilli isn’t as clever in the ring as he is outside of it.

The Belgian ace holds the unofficial title of the world’s brainiest boxer, gaining a masters degree in economics with the highest honours at Liege University three years ago.

Fegatilli, 26, challenges for ­Foster’s European super-featherweight title in the Premier Suite at Bolton’s ­Reebok Stadium tonight.

Brainbox Fegatilli now works as a consultant in health management at the University Hospital of Liege. 

He speaks five languages – French, Dutch, English, Italian and ­Spanish and believes that the world of ­boxing has helped him considerably in his climb up the educational rankings.

He said: “Boxing is a wonderful sport which combines so many ­values such as discipline and spirit.

“It takes more than intelligence to pass the exams I had to pass. It takes discipline and spirit, the exact same values as boxing.

“I am also a highly competitive person who likes to compete on all levels, not only on the part of ­intelligence. I want to test my body and spirit all the time.”

Fegatilli is something of a one-off and revealed that he took up boxing after his dad refused to pay for ­surgery to make his nose smaller! 

He recalled: “I started to box when I was 14 years old. I was born with a big nose and when I was a teenager I had a lot of hang-ups about it.

“So, one day, I asked my father to pay for cosmetic ­surgery. But he told me to take up boxing.

“He said that getting in the ­boxing ring would help reduce it! That is how I got my nose and here I am years later.”

In the chief supporting contest ­tonight, St Helens scrapper Craig Lyon, 29, makes the first defence of his English super-bantamweight ­title against Barnsley’s Josh Wale, 22, in a War of the Roses ­battle.

Unbeaten British Olympian Joe Murray, 24, faces his ­toughest test so far against ­Frenchman Daniel Kodjo Sassou, who recently ­ fought Scott Quigg.

PREDICTION: Clever Fegatilli will be no pushover, but I take Foster to finish him off around the sixth.