Jamaica’s former WBA Super world featherweight champion Nicholas ‘Axe Man’ Walters says he was encouraged to return to the ring by several trainers in Panama where he is based.

The 37-year-old is set to break a six-year layoff with an eight-round super lightweight bout this Saturday in Santa Marta, Colombia, against local fighter Luis Diaz Marmol.

In recent years, Walters had been visiting the boxing gym to keep in shape but admits he “wasn’t really serious about fighting” until experts around the gym encouraged him to come out of retirement.

“After sparring with other fighters here in Panama, my coach and other coaches asked me to come back to the sport,” Walters said.

“I was making it very difficult for the guys that I was sparring with, so everyone was saying I should make a comeback,” added Walters, who boasts a solid ring record of 26 wins (21 kos) against one loss and one draw.

The 29-year-old Marmol brings an aggressive style to this Walters bout and upset unbeaten Colombian prospect Diego Silva his last time out. Marmol has a ring record of 19 wins (11 kos) against 16 losses.

Originally from Montego Bay on Jamaica’s north coast, Walters became the first Jamaican ever to win a world boxing title at home when he defeated Daulis Prescott on December 8, 2012 in Kingston via a seventh round TKO. He will be fighting for the first time since 2016 but has been actively training for months.

Walters has also enlisted the services of well-respected manager Gabriel Barron as he returns in a weight class 14 pounds above his title-winning featherweight division. In his last bout on November 20, 2016, Walters quit against Vasiliy Lomachenko after being dominated by the outstanding Ukrainian for seven rounds in Nevada, USA.

Walters had turned pro in 2008 after an amateur career that included bronze at the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games and two gold medals at the Caribbean Championships in 2005 and 2006. Within a few years he became one of the world’s most exciting fighters of the lower weight divisions after defeating big names like Nonito Donaire and Vic Darchinyan.