It might take some time, however Rhiannon Dixon goes to should get used to being described as a world champion slightly than a former pharmacist.
On Saturday evening, the 28-year-old southpaw dropped Argentina’s completed Karen Elizabeth Carabajal and boxed her technique to a complete unanimous resolution victory to assert the WBO light-weight title.
The win capped a outstanding rise for Dixon, 10-0 (1 KO). It’s simply over 4 years since she walked out at Bolton’s White Resort to make her skilled debut. She did so and not using a lengthy newbie profession or a big promotional deal. Dixon’s unpaid expertise amounted to seven white collar fights and he or she was a part-time fighter who mixed her coaching together with her job as a pharmacist.
To go from a standing begin to a world title in such a brief house of time is a outstanding achievement and after the combat, the enormity of her accomplishment was slowly starting to daybreak on her.
“As a result of it has been such an extended camp it doesn’t really feel actual. It’s nonetheless so recent so it is not hit me and I feel I am going to get up tomorrow and be like ‘Oh my God, I am a world champion.’” Dixon mentioned.
“In 10 [professional] fights, going from Commonwealth to European and now world champion, from white collar. That is my seventeenth combat. Not counting avenue fights.”
Issues modified when Dixon linked up together with her coach – former WBA light-weight champion, Anthony Crolla – simply over three years in the past.
“Once I was doing pharmacy I assumed, ‘Oh, it’s so distant I am going to simply see how I get on.’ after which after I acquired with Paul [Ready, her manager] and Anthony [Crolla, her trainer] and acquired this complete new crew round me it was actual,” she mentioned.
“I need to not solely do it for myself however do it for them. All the pieces modified. My coaching modified and I assumed, ‘ what? I’m going to be a world champion.’”
The adjustments and loads of onerous work have paid off. Dixon is now a significant participant in one in all ladies’s boxing’s blue riband divisions. Katie Taylor nonetheless holds the WBA and WBC titles whereas large names like Beatriz Ferreira and Caroline Dubois additionally inhabit the upper reaches of the 135lb class.
Dixon’s analytical thoughts additionally signifies that she is her personal harshest critic however though the challenges are positive to get harder, she will be able to now head into these large fights secure within the information that she deserves to combine in these circles. These ideas can wait. In the interim, Dixon is set to benefit from the second.
“I’ve been dreaming about this as a result of clearly the combat has been on the playing cards for ages. For a great deal of nights I’ve been dreaming. I’d been doing 10 rounds in my sleep, waking up completely knackered and considering, ‘Oh my God, I am in my mattress. I have not even gained it but.’ Now I’ve accomplished it and I truly did it higher in my dream than I did tonight so I want I might have accomplished it the way in which I did it in my dream,” she mentioned.
“I do know I can do loads higher and I get down on myself. I don’t need to appear ungrateful however I am simply so self-critical and I simply have to stay within the second. I’m by no means going to get this second again once more the place I’ve simply gained my first world title. I’m a perfectionist.”
