Former middleweight champion Savannah Marshall is a few days away from another major opportunity, as she moves up in weight to challenge undisputed super middleweight champion Franchon Crews-Dezurn.
In her last fight, Marshall suffered a decision loss to career rival Claressa Shields in their undisputed middleweight clash.
The sole defeat on Crews-Dezurn’s record also came at the hands of Shields.
Marshall vs. Crews-Dezurn takes place this Saturday night in Manchester.
“It’ll mean everything [if I win],” Marshall told Sky Sports. “The build up with Claressa, I was so confident, I was really confident.
“I fell short and all I wanted was to become undisputed champion of the world. Look, I’ve got another crack at it. Sometimes people don’t even get one crack but this is my second crack so I’ve got to leave it all in there.”
In one fight, Marshall has the opportunity to become the undisputed champion – as opposed to chasing down every world title in her weight class.
“A lot of people don’t understand that boxing’s a business as well and it’s a dirty business. It’s quite savage. But look, she’s here now, she’s got all the belts and it saves me shipping about and collecting them one by one. She’s brought them all for me,” Marshall said.
“If I can’t mix it at this level, what good am I in boxing? I have hard camps, I have hard sparring, how can I go from being a world champion to boxing eight rounders again, to boxing foreigners that have just been brought in for a loss? I’m not about that. I want to be a champion again.
“I know that there’ll be points where I won’t be able to keep her off with the jab. I won’t be able to keep her at bay the whole fight. So there will be times in the fight where I’ll have to dig deep and go toe-to-toe. She’s very smart. Very smart in what she does and like I said she’s physical. She’ll have you on the floor, she’ll rough you up. She’ll punch you in the back of the head, she’s that sort of fighter.”