Stand-up comedian Paul Smith is turning mixed martial arts fighter for his next gig. He has been in intensive MMA training over the last year and will take on reality TV star Jake Quickenden at Manchester's AO Arena on November 4 in the main event dubbed ‘’Stage to the Cage.’’

Tickets and info about the event are here.

The Liverpudlian stand-up, who is going out on a major comedy tour soon, has talked about his training and experience leading up to the big fight.

"Sparring was a real baptism of fire, I felt like I was drowning" We've been doing at least one to two hard sparring sessions a week.  When I first started doing them I was terrified. And the first hard spar I did - I swear it felt like I was drowning. It was just so bad. And the way they work in the gym, because obviously I'm prepping for a fight, we'll do a five minute round. Then we'll have a minute rest, then I'll get a fresh partner.

So I'm getting a fresh body each time. So I'm knackered and I'm fighting a completely fresh person. By the third or fourth round in, you can barely hold your hands up, and you just get punched everywhere. It’s then being able to cope with that helplessness and still listen to the coach. And just being able to pull any [attack] in those rounds is a massive victory. And as the weeks have progressed.  I've gone from dread to kind of actually - not enjoying it - but not dreading it. I'm managing to hold my own now. it's a real baptism of fire.

It’s a cocktail of emotions. I'm nervous about it. I'm scared. I'm excited. But I feel prepared for it, which is a weird thing to say. The threat of being punched in the face repeatedly is a good motivator to prepare properly and it's been a tough year. Part of me is feeling scared - it's a fight and he’s a big athletic, strong looking guy, so obviously going to be a tough 15 min. But the rounds I'm doing in the gym, I'm thinking [the fight] will be an easy week for me. I'm kind of excited and then I can get fat again. 

I had a good chat with a guy called Liam Harrison, who's a very famous Muay Thai fighter. And he said “everytime you run through that fight in your head it’s going to go differently depending on what day you’re having”. Some days I think I'm going to walk out and he's going to throw a head kick and just knock me out. Some days I think I'm going to walk out and he's going to cower down and I'm going to grapple him against the fence and take him to the ground and just ragdoll him everywhere. Some days it’s a spinning back fist or some batman punch. And if you start thinking about it that way and you've imagined it going a certain way and something goes wrong you’re just going flap because you go “Oh, this isn't the way I've imagined this.”

So what I've been trying to do is visualize what I got told to do -  visualize getting tapped off, the ref tapping your back. You've won the fight.  Running off. That's what I'm trying to visualize. I'm trying to just visualize that victory moment where I've got one hand in the air, getting my hand raised and just been focusing on that.  That's the visualization I've been doing. It's impossible to know what's going to happen in a fight. It's weird because I know Jake’s tall, he's big, rangey, he’s boxed before, so I imagine he's going to strike, but he might be a phenomenal grappler. I don't know. I just don't know. We have a game plan and I'm sure he has a game plan. My focus is going to be staying calm, listening to my coach, and just trying to react in the moment as best I can, and just win.

I really want to win, I am very competitive. I wouldn't lie about that. But beyond that I just want it to be a good fight. I want to show that we have put this work in. I don’t want to disparage anyone but it’s not going to be like some of the recent celebrity fights. If it's competitive and entertaining and I've lost - I've got caught with something - I'll be happy with that. I think I'll be able to live with that. Ideally, though I just walk out and smash his fucking head in."