When Canadian cruiserweight Ryan Rozicki, 20-1-1 (19 KOs), enters the ring on May 3 to challenge Badou Jack, 28-3-3 (17 KOs), Rozicki will be trying to tap into the spirit of the legendary Jack Dempsey.

Jack-Rozicki, for the WBC cruiserweight title, will be part of the card headlined by the super middleweight championship fight between Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and William Scull.

The 30-year-old Rozicki became obsessed with Dempsey as a teenager. Dempsey’s violent stoppage of the enormous Jess Willard on YouTube is ingrained in Rozicki’s head. Thanks to YouTube, a fight from over a century ago is an indelible boxing memory for the Canadian.

“The moment I saw [Dempsey] throw that left hook and his attack, almost like a legal assault, I was so obsessed that I must have watched it at least 100 times,” Rozicki said in a press release. “The next day I went to the gym, and I told my trainer I wanted to fight like Jack Dempsey. I emulate his style. He didn’t get into the ring to make friends; he was a killer. I still believe in his energy and spirit; it’s around me.”

The similarities don’t stop there.

“We both have four letters in our first name, same middle initial [W], the way we were raised, his father was like mine. I got a little crazy. I attended an amateur show one day in New Brunswick and an old guy who trained some of the fighters said he wanted to talk to me and had something for me. He gave me Jack Dempsey’s orange book and said to keep it. There are many, many books written about Jack Dempsey, but I haven’t found this orange book, and I take it into the ring with me every fight.”

Rozicki has even dreamed of Dempsey and said he tried to show Dempsey the parallels in their fighting styles in the dream, but his idol encouraged him to focus on maximizing his own skills rather than emulate those of a fighter gone by.

“Jack Dempsey is always attached with my name and that it will remain that way throughout his career,” Rozicki said. “A few years ago, I made a deal with myself.”

That deal: if Rozicki wins the world title, he’ll visit Jack Dempsey’s grave site in Southampton Cemetery in Tuckahoe, New York, and leave his belt at his hero’s side.