Natasha Jonas. The Queen of Liverpool. Ready to take a curtain call before her Barnett home crowd which may very well be the last. She may not stop with that though she has been paid her wages.
The city will pay its reverence to its own boxing royalty on Saturday night when Jonas headlines against Ivana Habazin in the Liverpool Exhibition Centre, understanding it can only be one of those final dances, and one final examination for the holder of multiple titles.
Resilience through adversity and patience through adversity has transformed into a career making her one of Britain’s greatest female fighters and raising the flag for the boom in women’s boxing.
This week local undercard fighter Frankie Stringer claimed he wanted to be the next Jonas in Liverpool while youngster Mikie Tallon referred to her as a role model. In thousands, fans will join them this weekend in repaying Jonas for his effort in delivering boxing silverware back to Merseyside.
“When I am here it’s always good to be back here potentially for the last time in my career , it is special,” Jonas said to Sky Sports. And yeah, when the fights get hard, when they get tough, a little bit sore and you’re a little bit tired, you get charged off the energy from the crowd and it spurs you on, it’s really special.
She had to wait. How she had to wait. Jonas, the first-ever British female Olympic boxer, recovered from a loss to Viviane Obenauf in her early career and later drew with Terri Harper, and lost a heartbreaker to Katie Taylor as she pursues another shot at a world title.
This means that the waiting was only brought to an end in February, 2022, when she knocked out Chris Namús in the second round at the age of 37, the victory which would lead to three other world titles in a span of one year.
She will aim at adding to her collection in form of Habazin’s WBC belt on Saturday and by now everyone knows that a victory should apparently set her up an all British fight with former Olympic champion Price.
Does that give add opportunities for motivation? “Nobody wants to lose!” she says.
We have these sort of events such as Fury vs AJ, Eubank vs Benn, Amir Khan and Kell Brook & Co, and everyone has to take a side.
Oh yes I was gob smacked so to be one of the first females to have that fight yes Chantelle (Cameron) and Katie (Taylor) had their fight back in Ireland but to have that here in the UK that would be so big.
“It is definitely a great fight but if you don’t triumph on Saturday it does not take place so the fighter has to concentrate on the fight at hand.”
Jonas and Price have been perfect in their mental preparation for the weekend, ready to accept confrontation while at the same time confidently asserting that both will be facing sharp challenges in Habazin and Mateus, none of whom should be underestimated. For the most part, it has been outsiders looking in that set up the likes of a showdown for women in the ringside.
The build-up, however, took an interesting twist yesterday when a fired up Habazin herself felt the need to remind anyone interested of her status as anything but a walk over for Jonas. They also banned talk of a Jonas-Price fight as ‘disrespectful’ and threatened to tear up the script when it was mentioned.
“Indeed, I was fully onboard with Ivana yesterday,”_Boxxer CEO and promoter Ben Shalom. Collision Course, it’s their title for a reason, they’ve both agreed to fight the winner – if Mateus wins, if Habazin wins, they’re the ones who will be fighting.
They all believe that when we have three world champions that they should all be given preference. Natasha is the queen, Lauren is the gold medallist and world champion but Ivana is already a world champion and they are all compete the best.
“Okay let’s put everybody in a room; have a road to undisputed and it’s the winner stays on.”
Jonas is 15-2-1 when she returns to the ring for the first time since defeating Mikaela Mayer via split decision to retain her IBF world title in Liverpool in January. Habazin enters at 23-5 with April’s unanimous decision win over Kinga Magyar, as part of five losses to fighters like Terri Harper and Claressa Shields.
”This is a serious fight, the main event is a 50/50 fight,” Shalom added.
Each time Natasha fights I expect to see her start to lose some energy, but so far that has not been the case. It was a good show in a very stiff match against Mayer.
In fact, if we envisage a situation whereby we have done our forecast and seen a 10 or 15 per cent drop off Ivana Habazin will be there to cash in.” That is again going to be a great kind of an environment but I really think it is half half.
If everything in Los Angeles goes as planned during Saturday night, Price looks like he’s already preparing for 2025. The Welsh woman indeed moves steadily high to become one if the most skillful boxing female fighter as she trends towards dominance and even great uplift as she has recorded a maiden world title.
Jonas realizes it is one of the most difficult cases she has ever met in her professional quite practice. In some ways, she considers the idea of having a headline history event as a motivation going into the match against Habazin.
“When everything is turning against me, then, I produce my best performance and I believe that fight will be one of them,” he continued.
But first, the dangerous Habazin, of whom she had heard Gavril growling with displeasure when Olar shook him out of sleep with the news of the bride. No matter what is to follow at the beginning of the new year there is the sensation that this may well be the last time Jonas has centre stage in the ring in her treasured Liverpool.
This will not let the occasion get to her, not that she will be-products of the occasion either.
‘I probably take in the ambiance each time that I box now since with what happened in the fight, you never know,’ Jonas responded.
Watching the video I noticed something that I didn’t like about the Olympics experience as well and that is that one is so concentrated on the result that he or she doesn’t actually get to enjoy the whole experience; I wish I did that to a lesser extent.
“That means so now I live a little bit more in the moment.”
