Shantel Adams, the new face of women’s boxing in Trinidad and Tobago, is basking in the glory of a first-round victory over Venezuelan Heidi Guariguan in Caracas on Friday.
All eyes are now fixed on Adams as she joins T&T’s elite group of women boxers alongside Tiana Guy and Angel George. Her triumph follows another spectacular performance last month in Canada, where she ripped apart Canadian Klarissa Mootoo in a super lightweight contest that also ended in the very first round.
Mere moments after touching down from the contest, Adams, still revelling in her victory, said, “I feel thankful. I went over there to a foreign country again and I got the job done–and even faster this time. I mean, all I know is that it will not always be like this, but I’m thankful. In my mind, I had to win this fight. I mean, I don’t ever want to lose any fight that I take part in, so the intent was just to win by any means necessary. When I saw the opening, I took it, and well, you all saw the results,” Adams told Guardian Media Sports yesterday.
Adams, a protégé of kickboxing and boxing trainer Bharrath Ramoutar, has revived a career that was put on pause more than eight years ago. However, at 32, her competitive adrenaline never faded. Her ultimate target now is to become one of the top boxers in the world, a journey that will first require a victory over her compatriot, Tiana Guy.
“Well, I’ve been boxing for over 10 years now,” Adams said. “I started off with, well, I’ve been with Bharrath Ramoutar, and in 2016, I probably would have left this sport for a long while, but last year, I came back and started to train again. And I guess once you have a passion for something, you always will return to that passion, so we started off doing kickboxing, and then we got a fight in Canada.
“That was last month, and it was a boxing match, so we started to train for boxing solely, and we trained really hard for that fight because we didn’t know what to expect, plus it was my first professional fight, so the training paid off because I was able to stop the opponent in the first round, and she had more experience than I did. She had a lot more fights. She had 20-something fights, and I had no fights, and she had a lot of wins on her record as well. I mean, I respect my opponent, and I respect their achievements, but I know that when I go to fight, I just want to fight, and I have to win, regardless of what the circumstances are. I always try my best to win every fight.”
When asked about Guy, Adams noted that they were once training partners, but when they meet, she wants to put on a show.
“We worked together. We sparred several rounds, so I have experience with her in the ring, but she’s a good boxer, and when the time comes, I want to put on a show, and I’m sure she wants to put on a show as well, so I want to win. At the end of the day, it’s a fight, so we’ll see what happens when the bell rings.”
Guy’s management team has issued a challenge and a contract for a $30,000 bounty. They are awaiting a response from promoter and matchmaker Boxu Potts to confirm the purse, the date, and the weight division for the highly anticipated clash..
