Ahead of her blockbuster fight with Claressa Shields, Savannah Marshall is looking back at her start in the pro game, including a partner who couldn’t make it.
After successive Olympic disappointments as an amateur, it was perhaps a surprise that Marshall found himself a spot in one of the biggest games of the decade – Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor. Seeing promise in boxer Hartlepool, Mayweather quickly signed with his advertising agency as a professional.
She told Sky Sports that, contrary to her readiness to fight in Vegas, she had never set foot in a professional boxing gym.
“Before flying to Vegas for my debut, I was on the phone with Sam Jones and I said, ‘I’ve never really been to the gym. He said, ‘I’m taking care of Joe Joyce at the minute and he’s instructing Hughie Fury in Bolton and his dad Peter said you’re welcome back down and he’ll show you the bits and bobs just got you started for your debut’. “
As a result, the trainer-fighter relationship has blossomed ever since. Marshall went on to talk about her first meeting with her future coach, and her first professional competition partner.
“I don’t know anything about Peter, I know he’s Tyson’s uncle and know that Tyson became a heavyweight champion, that’s all I know. I went down to see Peter and he was really nice and welcoming.”
“I remember him saying ‘do you want to fight?’, I said ‘ahh yeah, keep going’. Tommy Fury was there and I remember Peter saying “you don’t put gloves on her, don’t touch her, I want you to work in defense”. “
How does it happen? It’s an eye-opener for the current WBO Champion.
“I put my gloves on and thought ‘I’ll beat you’ but I couldn’t put the gloves on him, that’s my introduction to professional boxing.”
Peter Fury is known to be a straight-talking, non-profane trainer, and elsewhere in the interview, Marshall revealed that he’s had her best interests at heart since that first meeting. .
“During that camp, Peter, the philosopher he is now, would once again say ‘you just consider yourself in America, because this pro boxing is not what you thought you knew’. . Every now and then he dropped it – ‘this pro boxing is a dirty business, you know?’. Even back then he prepared me that ‘it’s not all Lamborghinis’ and it isn’t. “
Marshall (12 – 0, 10 KOs) has been public about considering giving up boxing altogether after a false ending in a controversial decision at the 2016 Rio Olympics, it seems, with guidance. by Peter Fury, she found a new love for the sport at that Bolton gym.
She faces Claressa Shields on September 10 at the O2 Arena in London, with UK viewers able to watch via Sky Sports. The gritty bout will see an undisputed middleweight champion crowned.
