SCOTT Quigg was last week upgraded to WBA super-bantamweight champion but is refusing to accept the honour until he beats Cuba’s Yoandris Salinas in the ring a week on Saturday.

The Bury boxer won the WBA interim belt after defeating Rendall Munroe at the Phones 4 U Arena in Manchester last November and has now been moved up into the vacant title.

He will now go to London’s O2 Arena to defend it on October 5.

Quigg and Salinas had been due to meet as the chief support to David Haye’s heavyweight showdown with Tyson Fury in Manchester this Saturday, but after Haye pulled out with a cut, Eddie Hearn and Golden Boy quickly acted to move the bout to the O2 a week later.

Undefeated 24-year-old Quigg, whose record boasts 26 wins and one draw, is banning all talk of being world champion until he has earned the prize for real.

“If I don’t win that fight I’m not a world champion,” said Quigg, who is trained by Joe Gallagher out of Amir Khan’s Gloves Gym in Bolton.

“On October 5, that’s when I win that fight and become world champion.

“This is the dream I’ve had since I was a kid. No one wants to win a world title out of the ring. I want to win my world title in a ring against a good opponent.”

Salinas will be no pushover, however. The 28-year-old Cuban, who has lost just one of his 21 professional bouts, was last week signed up into Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy stable.

“I know we’re up against a very good fighter,” said Quigg. “He’s had more than 300 wins as an amateur but me and Joe are confident with what we’ve come up with and he’ll have to worry about me as well on the night.”

Gallagher is also eager to see his young protege come of age on the world stage, but admits his current billing of world champion is a distraction he could have done without.

“Scott Quigg, I’ve always said will be a world champion. It’s nice that’s it on paper, but it doesn’t mean anything at the moment.

“We want to go and win it in the ring.

“But Salinas is a very, very dangerous opponent and comes with a good reputation from the gyms in Miami.

“Just as you never seem to get a bad Brazilian footballer or a bad Jamaican sprinter, you never get a bad Cuban boxer.

“So I think this fight is going to steal the show.”