Adams wants girlfriend on same bill
Nicola Adams completed a dream homecoming, stopping tough Mexican teenager Maryan Salazar to record a second professional victory and then set a new target for her promoter Frank Warren: to put her girlfriend Marlen Esparza, the American boxer, on the same bill as her in the UK.
Esparza, ringside for the bout, said she “would love to fight in the UK” and that “it would be amazing to fight on the same card as Nicola”.
Esparza, who is promoted by Oscar De La Hoya in the US, has her next contest on the undercard of the huge middleweight showdown between Gennady Golovkin and Saul ‘Canelo’ Álvarez in Las Vegas in September, but said that a fight in between would be “perfect”.
“It’s a long time to be out,”ut,” said Esparza, who boxed last month. “I’d love to have a fight in between and this would be a dream.”ream.”
Adams, who looked to excite against the game Salazar, was made up by the idea. “I’d loveve that,” said Adams. “If Frank can do that...it would be amazing. We need to keep the idea of that going.”
Promoter Warren puts World Boxing Organisation champion Billy Saunnders face-to-face with his mandatory challenger er Avtandil Khurtsidze at the Copper Box on the Olympic Park on July 8. It might be a venue to unite Adams and Esparza.p After all, it was at the Olympics in 2 2012 where Adams and Esparz Esparza won gold and bronze res respectively as the first winn winners of women’s boxing me medals at the Games. Elsewh Elsewhere, Birmingham’s Kal Ya Yafai defended his Worl World Boxing Association super flyweight title against Suguru Mar Maranaka, winning by a unanimous po points decision – 118108 119-107 119-107 – in a contest in which Yafai hadh his opponent down in the second but in which h he was pushed all the way way.