Junior Witter is ready to go all the way to keep his European belt - but has no intention of going the distance.

Witter makes the first defence of his light-welterweight title when he faces Polish long-shot Krzysztof Bienias at Wembley Conference Centre.

The London show in a fortnight will be Witter's first since he destroyed Salvatore Battaglia inside two rounds to become champion.

Bienias arrives in England with some credentials - he has gone the distance with Oktay Urkal - but Witter is expected to make typically short work of him.

His last 14 fights have been sealed by the fifth round. So why should this one be any different?

But the Bradford ace is leaving nothing to chance as he prepares as hard as ever.

He said: "All my sparring and pad work is over 12 rounds in training. I don't want it to go that far but if you don't prepare for the whole distance then you can come unstuck.

"I saw what happened to Naz (Naseem Hamed). He thought he'd blast every opponent out of there and when it went beyond the early rounds he started flagging.

"He hadn't trained for it going the distance and you could see there was nothing left in the tank. I can't afford to make the same mistake at any stage."

It will only be Witter's third fight in 2004, although he has another defence on the table for January. But it has been a good year with boxing's movers and shakers as he manoeuvres himself nearer the major players.

He added: "I've not been really active again but behind the scenes it's gone well. I'm looking for Mayweather, Gatti or Cotto, one of the big names - I'm not running from anyone and I won't go away.

"Within boxing circles I've got the respect. Other fighters know when someone is doing the business and they want to see me. I'm looking to go to America and hopefully that is the next step.

"The fights have been so far apart that I've got to put in another good performance to make people remember," added Witter. "It's very hard to follow that but I've got to go and do it if I want that big one."