Will Britain's next world champion be a woman?

Could we have another world champion on our hands? On Sunday 7th February Colchester’s Shanee Martin takes on Tenkai Tsunami for the WBA women’s super flyweight belt in Japan. BoxRec News caught up with Shanee before she jets off to Tokyo.

Shanee (9-4-1) is boxing through and through; she started training young. “I’ve been boxing since I was 12 years old, so it’s all I know. I felt I was peaking at the age of 15 but I knew I was too young to turn professional. I was fighting in unlicensed shows for IBA titles for a few years.” Shanee turned pro at 21 and made a successful debut in 2004.

Women’s boxing will get a real shot in the arm in 2012 when the Olympics come to London, where women’s boxing will be contested for the first time. When asked if this will help raise the profile, Shanee was very upbeat. “Oh yes, this will definitely help women’s boxing. When I first started as an amateur it took me five years to get five fights! Most of the clubs I approached knocked me back they just didn’t want to know. These days lots of clubs are training girls, so the Olympics can only help to push the sport forward and make it more popular. It’s a shame I missed out on the amateur game by about ten years!”

Looking back on Shanee’s professional record there has been a gap of over one year to this present moment in time. The inactivity was not through choice. “Everyone thought I had retired! But I had never been out of the gym, it’s just nothing was happening for me. Then a couple of months ago I met promoter Steve Goodwin through Facebook, then I started to see some light at the end of the tunnel. He set up a fight for me in April at the York Hall to kick start my career again.”

Then in December Shanee got a call from international agent, Phillip Fondu, who offered her a shot at the WBA strap. “I fought for the WBA flyweight title in Germany in 2007, this time it’s for the super-flyweight belt. I was meant to fight for it last summer but the fight was on-off and just never got made. When I got the nod from Phillip on the 27th of December to say the fight was on I was back in the gym for the serious training. I’ve had five weeks preparation at the Peacocks Gym in Canning town and also I do some sparring sessions in Newmarket. Then I have one week in Japan to finish up.”

Her 25-year-old opponent  from Toyko, Tenkai Tsunami (13-3)  is defending the belt for the first time. Shanee has not seen any of her fights on DVD but has done some homework on her style. “I’ve read up on her a bit, what I do know is that she is a come forward fighter, she’s shorter than me, short and stocky and always on the front foot, I’ve got a tough night ahead of me I think because she wont take many steps backwards! To be honest I’m more of a boxer, but for some reason I prefer to stand and fight when I know I can be the better boxer in the ring. My plan is to go out and box her, hit and move.”

2010 has plenty in store for Shanee. “Domestically there is Juliette Winter for me who I drew with before so I want to do that return match after I fight Oksana Romanov in April in a return fight, I was stopped on a bad cut in our first fight.”

On winning the WBA title - “It would mean everything to me, obviously every boxer wants to win titles but for me to bring this belt home would be something else.”

Women’s boxing may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but if one of our fighters has the chance to claim a world title then I’m sure Shanee will be taking our best wishes and support over to Japan with her next week.