James McGivern heard Angels in the crowd while fighting at the Ulster Hall

James McGivern [4-0] heard Angels when he fought in front of a crowd for just the second time as a pro last Friday.

Not quite divine beings heralding his return ‘home’ to the Ulster Hall, rather fans belting out a Robbie Williams favourite, but still nice nonetheless.

Either way it didn’t put him off, in fact it added to McGivern’s first fight at the famous venue since his second senior Ulster title win.

“That was brilliant, very loud,” he beamed as he spoke to Irish-boxing.com after his win over Russian opposition.

“I heard Robbie Williams at one stage! I heard people singing Angels. I was actually fighting and I asked myself ‘is someone singing angel in here? What’s going on?” It’s brilliant the support was surreal. Even now it’s surreal it’s fantastic.”

‘The Natural’ easily outboxed Russian Journeyman Rustem Fatkhullin over four. The 23-year-old southpaw admits he was tempted to trade his skills approach for a more aggressive one and wanted to test the bigger man’s power only for his coach and father to put him straight.

“I wanted him to hit me because he’s a lot heavier than I am. I thought if I got in there and let him hit me then I won’t have to be as tentative and he clipped me and I thought ‘that’s not bad he’s alright.

“He was stocky and he was strong. He could take a dig too. My Dad kept me on the ball because I was starting to get drawn in by him. He was drawing me into a fight, so my Dad was going ‘stop you’ll get clipped’ and that would be awful embarrassing in front of everyone wouldn’t it.”

McGivern now has four pro fights under his belt and if there is a chance to get a fifth before the year is out he will jump at it. The Commonwealth Games medal winner is the latest to put his name forward for a rumoured Belfast December show.

“If the opportunity to fight in December I don’t know I heard there’s a talk of a card in December I don’t know but if there’s a card I’ll definitely fight on it.”