DENNIS ‘THE MENACE’ McCANN enjoyed a sensational start to 2020 that most British fighters could only dream of.

In the space of just a few days, the ibox Gym bantamweight got a shock call from his childhood hero Prince Naseem Hamed, proposed to his childhood sweetheart in traditional Gypsy tradition and turned 19 with a gruelling double session.

The baby-faced banger enjoyed a breakout 2019 with five wins, four inside the distance, at some of Britain’s most celebrated venues.

The Kent ace wowed fans at the O2, Falls Park in Belfast and the Royal Albert Hall with his unorthodox southpaw style and ruthless one-punch power.

And he started 2020 with an incredible bang, getting FaceTimed by the British fight icon and daring to tell his future father-in-law that he was whisking his daughter off her feet.

On January 8, after a 45 minute run and two hour session on his 19th birthday, McCann tried to explain his whirlwind week while putting SunSport through our paces.

Brimming with teenage enthusiasm, he said: “Prince Naseem FaceTimed me the other day, totally out of the blue.

“I was so shocked, I was in a restaurant and it was very loud so I could not really hear him, I tried to ask him who had the best screw shot, me or him but I don’t know if he heard. I wasn’t nervous talking to him even though I am very proud to be getting compared to him.

“I was so nervous proposing, though, that was scary s***. Travellers propose differently to other people, we don’t go down on one knee for a start.

“Me and my girlfriend have been going out together for a long time now, I love her and she loves me and all that stuff.

“She went and told her mum and dad and then we had to go in together, out of respect, to ask. I would rather jump in the ring with Gennadiy Golovkin than do all that again, my face went bright red.”

McCann popped the question three days before his birthday but refused to celebrate either milestone with anything more than a bland meal at a high street restaurant.

The boisterous starlet, with the perfect nickname, has an old head on wide shoulders, that somehow allow him to make just 8st 6lbs for his fights.

His attitude is similar to that of a 30-year-old veteran going to extreme lengths to prolong the fading twilight of his career.

Every birthday as far back as he can remember has been spent boxing or training and he will not have it any other way.

He said: “I trained my a*** off on my 19th birthday because that is what has to be done. On my 18th birthday I remember being out on a running track training and I boxed in the ABA finals on my 17th birthday and won.

“I was up at 7.45am exactly for this birthday and did a 45minute run to start the day, then I came into the gym for a two-hour session at 2pm. Breakfast was the same as always porridge, porridge and more porridge.

“My birthday dinner treat – if you can call it that – will be a Nandos of plain chicken breast, peas and broccoli, maybe, if I am very generous to myself, I will have some ketchup.

“They don’t even sing to you in Nandos for your birthday, that’s TGI Fridays and that is my favourite restaurant. After every fight I go there and have the sesame chicken, chips smothered in sauce and a Coke.

“Even when I got engaged there was no romantic champagne and chocolates for me, my dad had all of that stuff, I am not allowed it, I won’t have that stuff around me when I am in camp.

“I know a lot of fighters start looking after themselves like this at 25 or 28 but I left school at 11, to go working with my dad, so I have matured very quickly having been around older people all my life.”

McCann, on another Frank Warren show on February 22, can take his time moving up the rankings especially as he cannot fight for the coveted British title until he turns 21, by which time he may already have surpassed that level.

That would allow him to take some well-earned time off to plan a lavish summer wedding. But unsurprisingly he is having none of it.

“I won’t be very hands on with the wedding planning,” he said. “I will be too busy training for flowers and music talk.

“If you honestly ask me which date I am most excited about setting, my wedding date or next fight date, it is fight all day long.

“My boxing is more important than any woman, my missus will kill me for this but it is the truth. Boxing is everything to me.”

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