WBC super-lightweight champion Chantelle Cameron intends to make Puerto Rican challenger Melissa Hernandez pay for her trash talk when they collide at the Michelob ULTRA Arena at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, on Saturday evening.
Northampton’s Cameron (13-0, 7 KOs) was forced to withdraw from an original date with Hernandez in March after suffering whiplash in a car crash during training camp.
Hernandez (23-7-2 7 KOs) then added insult to injury by claiming that the champion had pulled out because she wasn’t ready. Now Cameron wants to settle the score in emphatic fashion.
“She’s just a hype job, she chats shit saying I pulled out because I wasn’t ready and the injury was a lie. Listen, if I wasn’t ready and was making excuses, I could have just said I had Covid instead of a car crash. Who lies about having a car crash? That’s just stupid,” said Cameron.
“That has put a bit of fire in me and I’m glad, because it’s given me an extra hunger and I will make her eat her words because she’s nothing to be scared of. She’s a trash talker, I’m not, I do my business in the ring. Let her do her thing and I’ll do mine, but as soon as that bell goes, I’ll turn savage.
“It’d be lovely to stop her and, if I do that, I want it to be a proper stoppage, not the referee stepping in, I want to stop her on her feet. But I’m not looking for it, Jamie Moore and Nigel Travis have been amazing with my tactics, so I am not going to go in there and ruin my plan. She’s a tricky opponent, she’s slippery, smart, experienced and, if I go in there looking for a KO, she could nick it on points and that’s not happening, that belt is coming back home with me.
“We don’t overlook anyone, I’m not disrespectful and I’m zoned in on her. I have to get through Melissa, she’s tough, but I feel my journey isn’t stopping here, it’s going forward. I refuse to lose. Whatever it takes, I will do it to win, because I know what the future can hold for me if I perform well and win.
“Lose, I go back to the drawing-board and I can’t think about that. I want to be in the big fights, Katie Taylor, Natasha Jonas, Terri Harper, Shannon Courtenay, Ebanie Bridges, all those fights, because I don’t feel like I have had my moments yet.”
Main image: Mark Robinson/Matchroom.