LUKE Watkins says that he is going to take some time and let his successful start to the paid ranks sink in.

The Swindon cruiserweight claimed the second win of his professional career on Saturday in Germany on the undercard of the WBO super-middleweight world title bout between Arthur Abraham and Paul Smith.

The 24-year-old secured a points success over Martin Horak in the final fight before the main event in Kiel.

Yet despite what has seemingly been a comfortable transitions to the paid ranks, the Paddy Fitzpatrick-trained fighter had no idea of the behind the scene problem before the fight.

“I didn’t know that the opponent had been changed,” Watkins told the Advertiser. “I think Paddy found out before the weigh-in.

“That wasn’t ideal, but we went in and got the job.

“It has been a good start, to be honest I couldn’t be happier with how it has gone.”

As well as dealing with a change of opponent, Watkins had to deal with facing a southpaw so early in his career.

Having not had anytime to prepare for Horak, says that he had to draw on his amateur experience.

“I used to spar a southpaw back in the day so I had to remember what I did,” Watkins said.

“When you fight a southpaw your feet clash, your heads clash, I had a massive bruise on my head, but we did the job.”

Watkins’ trainer Fitzpatrick said that he stopped his boxer from switching from orthodox to southpaw.

“Duke started to switch to southpaw, but when the dude is a southpaw every day of his career there is no point looking to go southpaw,” Fitzpatrick said.

“He did that and I was very pleased with how Duke dealt with the night.

“The Sauerlands asked us if we minded switching to four-threes and because it was going to be the fight before the main event I was more than happy to do that.

“It meant that Duke got to fight in front of 8,000 and German television - he did excellent.”