SAM STOREY from Belfast will be bidding for his third British title. when he takes on David Starie from Bury St Edmunds at the York Hall in Bethnal Green tonight for the vacant super middleweight crown.

Storey has held this title twice already but surrendered it to fight Henry Wharton for the European and Commonwealth titles in 1995. He was unsuccessful in that attempt, being knocked out in the fourth round, but now, after one successful warm up fight when he beat Butch Lesley on a disqualification last November, he is ready to take on the unbeaten Starie.

Both boxers are former amateur champions in their respective countries. Storey beat Steve Collins in the final of the national championships in the National Stadium in 1985 and he turned professional almost straight way.

He met Collins, who had succeeded him as Irish champion, again for the Irish middleweight professional title in Boston in 1988 when Collins reversed the decision and a win for Storey tonight might even result in another meeting for the two Irishmen.

Both are now in the super middleweight division and if Collins was willing to put his world title at stake, Storey would jump at the chance.

That would represent Storey's biggest pay day but he will be hard pressed to beat Starie who has had 13 professional fights, winning all of them including nine within the distance. Starie won the ABA title in 1993 before turning professional. He is regarded as one of the brightest prospects in British boxing at the moment but Storey is a hardened warrior after 25 professional fights winning 20.

At 33 this may well be Storey's last chance to challenge for a world title and he makes no secret of the fact. "If I win this one I will certainly challenge Collins. That would surely fill the King's Hall," he says.