Have gloves, will travel could easily be the motto for Thetford’s Roni Dean.
The 29-year-old has three fights and three wins to her name, all in different venues. Next up is a June15 meeting with Amy Greatorex – this time in Cheshunt.
Dean made her debut at York Hall, then won at Harrow Leisure Centre, before coming to Norfolk in December for win number three.
Fortunately, Dean isn’t the sort to get ruffled - even mention of three frustrating fight cancellations in the past 12 months is met by a raised shoulder look that says, ‘what can I do?’
“I was meant to fight in Cheshunt in March, but it got cancelled,” she said. “I had two last year that ended up getting cancelled – one where an opponent pulled out and one when the show got cancelled. That was two last year and this year I had the one in March, so three all up.
“You start thinking ‘is it going to happen again?’ But it is what it is. It is deflating and then you end up carrying on training and then you get a bit burnt out at some stage. It is hard, but the worst thing is waiting for a fight date to come. I don't like not training anyway, so you're always training hard, training hard, and you're waiting to get the date.
“I don't mind travelling, it doesn't bother me to be fair. I loved boxing at York Hall because I'd always wanted to fight at York Hall, so having my debut there was nice and it is a good venue. It's really good being there, but I don't mind travelling. Obviously it's easier selling tickets the closer it is, but Thetford to London, while it's still a trek, it's not terrible.”
Dean doesn’t do things my halves – her approach to boxing isn’t to stand back and be cagey.
“I'm either all in or all out,” she said. “If I want to do something, I'll put everything into it and it annoys me when I see other people half doing things. So for me I think if you want to do something, especially something like this, you need to give it your best shot so that you know how far you can go. There's always people that say, ‘oh, if I did this, I could have done that’, and that just leaves questions."
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