When Bilal Fawaz won the English super-welterweight championship, the guileless, wide-eyed shock of his reaction told its own story.
It was the second time he'd boxed Junaid Bostan after a contentious split draw in their first contest. While he thought he deserved the result at the conclusion of the second bout, he wasn't sure he'd get the decision.
"When I got the belt, when they came to me with the belt, I was shocked," Fawaz told SportNews.
"I was happy that now the doors have opened. It was not happiness just for the belt. It was happiness for everything, to have that appreciation and confirmation that things are working out.
"I knew that my whole life begins now."
To him it meant more than just a boxing victory. Becoming the champion of England was a more significant recognition. For almost two decades he's been striving to have his citizenship assured.
Stateless, Fawaz is looking to fight his way free of a nightmare. The boxer, an English champion as an amateur and now a professional, is still waiting for a British passport.
He was trafficked to the UK as a child, and forced to work, cooking and cleaning, in a household. Eventually he managed to escape and was taken into social care. But when he turned 18 he fell through the cracks in that system.
"I'm living in those traumas," he said. "It never stops. It's a continuous event that hasn't even stopped yet."
Boxing saved him from the streets, and he pursued a successful amateur career, though he was unable to box internationally or turn professional.
In 2017 he was snatched by the authorities and imprisoned in a detention centre. But as a stateless refugee he could not be lawfully deported. Eventually he was released and then, after finally getting a work permit, he was able to turn professional in 2022.
"It's the hardest thing that any man can face. I wouldn't wish this on my enemy. It is hard. It eats up a man's soul, a man's spirit, a man's willpower, a man's will to survive and persevere. Because in the back of your mind you know that whatever you do you can't get anywhere further," Fawaz said.
"How does that make you feel? It makes me feel like a failure. I'm a champion, I'm the English champion, not a failure."
Beating Bostan in a rematch to win the English title last month was a great moment for him. But now, at 37 years old, he's running out time to take the next step in his career.
"Giving me a work permit was just giving me a bus pass. But now I can't get on the train. I don't have a passport. I can't go work overseas and working overseas is where the real money is for financial stability," Fawaz said.
"I have a limited time left in my career. So if I don't utilise this right now I'm going to be driving Uber my whole life."
He is on a track to get his British passport, but it needs to be accelerated.
"I have a partner that's British, I have two kids that are British, I am British. I just don't have the recognition yet. I can't be deported anywhere, I can't be taken anywhere so it's crazy," Fawaz explained.
"They gave me a 10-year route so I have five more years. Before that five years runs out, my career is done. So I need to either give up on my boxing career internationally. Or I just do whatever I can to salvage what is left of the remaining of my career in the UK.
"They have taken away the golden years of my career, maybe all they can do is just give me the last few years that are left and I can make something of myself.
"I just want an equal chance to everyone else. I just want to be able to travel and fight. I'm not saying I'm going to be going around claiming benefits, whatever, I just want to work and pay my taxes and that's all that matters.
"I need someone to say you know what, you've already done 24 years in the country. That is enough. You don't have to wait another five years," he added.
"Why not make it now? Because it will happen. There's no two ways about it, it will happen. Whether it happens then or it happens now, it will happen. What is imperative is if it doesn't happen now, I will be deprived of a better future."
His next target is the British super-welterweight championship. He wants to fight the winner of the Ishmael Davis and Sam Gilley for the Lonsdale belt.
"Either of them will be great fight," he said. "I want that fight. It's going to happen."
