Natasha Jonas is determined to send another blunt message to her critics by capping off a year like no other with another world title around her waist.
Jonas will attempt to add a third super-welterweight world title to her collection when she takes on IBF champion Marie-Eve Dicaire at the Manchester Arena on Saturday night. 'Miss GB's' rise to the top of the super-welterweight division this year has been meteoric. Just seven years ago she initially called time on her boxing career.
Now, she is preparing for arguably the biggest night of her life after wins over Christian Namus and Patricia Berghult secured her the WBO and WBC crowns. Jonas was the first first female boxer to compete for Great Britain and the first woman to compete in the sport for Team GB at the Olympic Games. It has been a rollercoaster ride for the southpaw.
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Dicaire is a much bigger and far more dangerous and experienced opponent than the two women Jonas beat this year on her title run. But this is a different Jonas to the one we have seen before. This is Natasha Jonas without the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“I have always said, an active Natasha is a dangerous one,” she told IFLTV when asked about her incredible 2022. “I would love to say I am going to knock her out in two rounds, but one I don’t make predictions, and two I train for 10 hard rounds.
“Naturally she is bigger than the other two girls I have fought and she is good with her hands and good with her feet. She is smart and I have got to combat all of that.
“I just think being active and having the weight lifted off my shoulders of having to prove to everyone that I was world level.
“Now I can just go back to enjoying the boxing. I am in the gym and I am enjoying being in here and you are transferring everything that you are learning into the ring. That is what you have got to do on fight night and I have enjoyed that journey.”
Speaking last week, Jonas’s promoter, Ben Shalom, claimed it is 'a definite possibility' for his fighter to face Claressa Shields next year.
Shields became undisputed middleweight champion with a stunning victory over Savannah Marshall last month and has hinted she would be open to returning to 154lbs.
And when asked what might come next, Jonas replied: “The possibilities now are endless.
"Once I get to that point and I think I can’t improve anymore, that's when I may decide to start looking beyond boxing.
“But right now I don’t feel like that. Right now I am improving with every fight and right now I still think I have got a lot to prove. People to prove right and people to prove wrong.”
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