Now the Norwich fighter, whose second comeback bout is likely to be next month, has said he is happy to accept that challenge.

‘‘I will fight Danny Williams any time he likes,’’ said the former WBO champion.

‘‘I’ll fight him in my back garden if he wants - and it would have to be my back garden because it’s 100 times the size of his and we’ll need it to get the crowd in to watch me beat him up.’’

Williams has made much of the time he put Hide on the canvas during a sparring session but Hide’s camp believe it will be the other way round if they met in a competitive fight.

‘‘Herbie is Premier League and although Danny Williams is a good fighter I would say he would be somewhere around the play-off zone in Division One,’’ said Hide’s trainer Graham Everett.

‘‘Even if the fight was offered to them I would very much doubt that Frank Warren would want it because he wouldn’t want a knockout on his own boy’s record.’’

Everett is making sure that Hide’s comeback is managed entirely from his home city.

‘‘Frank Warren and others have often put Herbie’s defeat to Vitali Klitschko down to him wanting to train in Norwich away from their people in London,’’ said Everett.

‘‘Perhaps he lost because they were putting their oar in rather than letting us get on with it. This time he is working in Norwich and we will get the job done properly.’’