BRAVEHEART
BOXER Hannah Rankin will never forget the night a TV network switched off its cameras minutes before what was set to be the biggest fight of her career.
Fox Sports, which had spent the evening broadcasting men’s fights that had been lower on the bill than Hannah’s, pulled its planned coverage of her 2018 title fight at the last minute.
Four years on, world champion Hannah is set to make history when Friday’s fight against Mexico’s Alejandra Ayala becomes the first all-female boxing match to top the bill at Glasgow’s OVO Hydro.
The bout, which will be televised, had been due to be staged at the Braehead Arena but was moved to the bigger venue as a result of the overwhelming demand for tickets.
It comes two weeks after Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano became the first women boxers to headline Madison Square Garden in New York.
A television pay-per-view audience of more than 1.5million people watched Irish fighter Katie win the bout.
Hannah, a two-time and double world title holder, is in no doubt the coronavirus pandemic played a key role in boosting the popularity of women’s boxing.
She hopes the raised profile of her history-making fight will inspire a new generation of girls into the sport.
Hannah, 31, of Luss, Dunbartonshire, said: “When I started out just a few years ago there is no way anyone would be saying Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano would be headlining Madison Square Garden and Hannah Rankin would be headlining the Hydro.
“When I fought Alicia Napoleon in New York at the Coliseum, Fox Sports turned the cameras off because it was a women’s fight.
“Now there has been such a change.