Oscar De La Hoya may have been selling Junior Witter short when he hailed him as the next Naseem Hamed.

De La Hoya snapped up Witter for a three-fight deal with his Golden Boy organisation on the back of his win over Lovemore N'Dou.

The former six-weight world champion immediately compared the all-conquering Bradford fighter with Prince Naseem and said: "We all know that Hamed is a superstar in America."

But trainer Dominic Ingle feels Witter already clearly outshines Hamed in one department - his thorough approach to training.

American comparisons between the two fighters are inevitable given their Ingle background. But Dominic, who worked alongside Brendan Ingle during Naz's pomp, believes their attitude in the gym is very different.

He said: "Naz would look at an opponent and decide he could do him in six rounds - so he'd only train for six. You might make him spar for 12 but you could tell that after the sixth he was only going through the motions.

"It's different with Junior and he always trains the full 12 rounds. When we knew he was fighting N'Dou we suspected it would go the distance but Junior had prepared for that anyway.

"Even in the fights when you expected him to finish kids early - which he has done - Junior would still plan for the worst-case scenario and prepare to go the whole way.

"That approach paid off against N'Dou. He is a strong fighter and some might have run out of steam when they didn't finish him early but Junior was never in trouble at all.

"It was a massive jump in class because N'Dou is ten times the opponent he has been up against. But Junior took it in his stride and showed his class."

The guessing game now starts over Witter's future opponents with Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto's the latest name to be thrown in the mix after he retained the WBO title last week with a fifth-round stoppage over DeMarcus Corley. But there is

a doubt over Arturo Gatti's WBC fight

with Floyd Mayweather going ahead in June with a dispute over the challenger's purse.

If the defence is mandatory, Gatti may have to face a replacement. Gianluca Branco is still second in the rankings but has fought the champion before, which might leave the way open for third-ranked Witter.

Meanwhile Witter, who flew back to England on Wednesday, has to defend his European title by the end of May. German-based Ukrainian Andreas Kotelnik is expected to be put forward by the European Boxing Union to face him.

Witter is currently out of action while he waits for the fractured knuckle on his left hand to heal.

l Femi Fehintola is back in action tonight in Sheffield on the undercard for Clinton Woods' latest bid for a world title.

Unbeaten Fehintola takes on local boy Daniel Thorpe.

In the main event of the sold-out bill, Woods fights Rico Hoye for the IBF light-heavyweight crown.