Is it inevitable, then, that there’ll be a rustiness in the ring when Hartlepool’s finest steps between the ropes at Maddison Square Garden tonight to take on Shadasia Green?
Might it be that after a dalliance with MMA, the sport in which she’s best known and one of the finest on the planet, seems slightly alien to the 34-year-old?
No chance. Not according to her American opponent, anyway.
“I’m expecting the best Savannah Marshall ever,” said Green ahead of the super-middleweight face-off in New York, which takes place on the undercard of Katie Taylor’s highly-anticipated trilogy bout with Amanda Serrano.
“She’s a former undisputed world champion and that’s what we’ve trained for. So we trained 200% for the best Savannah Marshall.”
Marshall dusted Franchon Crews Dezurn the last time she was in the boxing ring, the perfect response to her first professional defeat, which had come nine months earlier when she lost her grudge match with long-time rival Claressa Shields.
It was the pursuit of a rematch with Shields that led Marshall to MMA, with her one and only appearance in the cage so far coming in June last year, when she beat Mirela Vargas in Newcastle.
Marshall admitted recently she now doubts whether the Shields rematch will ever happen, but she knows she can’t put her career on hold and is relishing her return to the ring tonight.
“It’s a very, very long time, but it’s not like I’ve had two years sitting on the couch,” said Marshall, who has now signed to Jake Paul’s Most Valuable Promotion
“I’ve been in the gym, I’ve competed in MMA, so I’ve been active, I’ve been fit, and yeah, it was hard coming back to boxing.
“The stance, everything’s different, but look, I’ve boxed for a very long time, so muscle memory soon kicked in.”
Marshall added: “To be honest, me and Shadasia were meant to fight a while ago.
“It’s been two or three times it’s been close, we’ve been mentioned in the same conversation.
“So for it to follow an all female bill and not only that on Netflix, is massive.
“The numbers of Netflix pulls in beats Sky, TNT, it blows all those out of the water, so there’s no bigger platform. I’m over the moon really.”
Marshall’s fight and the full event will be shown live on Netflix, starting at 1am on Saturday morning.
