Scotland’s first women’s world champion and WBA junior middleweight champion Hannah Rankin doesn’t mince words when it comes to her opponent, Terri Harper.
Set for a thrilling clash on the Kid Galahad-Maxi Hughes undercard at Nottingham Motorpoint Arena this Saturday, the pair don’t seem to have much love for each other.
“His trainer has been very disrespectful to me and my team in the lead up to this fight,” says Harper. “But we all know he’s talking loud because he’s protecting Terri. He likes to make all the noise for her. So I would be interested to see what she has to say in person.”
Ranked No. 5 at lightweight by The Ring, Harper has moved up three weight divisions for a chance at a world championship belt after her devastating fourth-round knockout of American junior lightweight Alycia Baumgardner, and at doing this is not doing it herself. no favour, according to Rankin.
“She’s not in the 154 division, she’s moved up a lot of weight divisions to get my world titles, and I really don’t think she’s a 154 fighter. There are weight classes for a reason. And I believe 100% that I am a bigger and stronger fighter.”
The world champion is looking to defend her belts after a 10th-round stoppage via TKO on home soil in Glasgow this May, making history as the first female headliner in Scotland. Unfortunately, Mexican opponent Alejandra Ayala was hospitalized shortly after the fight and went into an induced coma, although she is now recovering.
It was a shock to Rankin, who notes that “no fighter thinks it will happen to him.”
“It was one of my best performances; everything came together. But you don’t want to celebrate when you’re worried about your opponent,” Rankin, currently rated No. 4 by The Ring. “She [Ayala] she told me, she could have been in the same situation as me, backwards. So she has nothing against me for that. It was very nice of her to say that.
With a pretty shaky record of 12-5, Harper likes to think she learned from her wins and her losses, including her 2018 loss to middleweight champion Claressa Shields, now a friend and training partner at boot camp. shared in Miami. “We’ve worked together a few times now, training and training. But this one was special because we’re both preparing to defend our world titles, and we have two world champions in the same camp,” says Harper. “There was an extra buzz.”
Terri Harper, now signed to Matchroom Boxing, has insisted that she is the A-side of the fight, but Rankin disagrees.
While he doesn’t look past Harper, “she’s a former world champion so you can’t fault that,” he notes, there are fights he’d love to do if he retains his belts this weekend.
“A Unification Struggle [with Natasha Jonas, rated at No. 2 by The Ring] It would be incredible. She just won the WBC belt too so now she has two belts and I have two belts. But there’s also Marie-Eve Dicaire in Canada, and I think Mary Spencer too. I also think Cecilia Braekhus mentioned getting to 154. So there are a lot of exciting fights,” she says (Note: The Ring title will also be declared vacant very soon due to champion Claressa Shields’ extended inactivity).
But then he pauses, breaking into an infectious smile. “However, my main focus this Saturday is Terri Harper.”
