After an absence from the ring of approximately 11 months, Natasha Jonas will finally be fighting come December 14 against Croatian WBC welterweight champion Ivana Habazin. While the fight is set to be a unification 147 lbs title bout, with Jonas’ IBF title set to be on the line alongside Habazin’s WBC, her trainer Joe Gallagher was nonetheless dissatisfied with Jonas’ treatment at the hands of her promoter; UK-based promotional outfit Boxxer, run by chairman and founder Ben Shalom
During an interview with TalkSport, British IBF welterweight (147 lbs) champion Natasha Jonas (15-2-1, 9 KO’s) had already expressed dissatisfaction at being kept out of the ring for roughly 11 months. Though she did not directly implicate her own promoter, Boxxer, there was a clear sense of frustration at her inactivity that stems from the promotion’s inability or unwillingness to keep her active.
Jonas’ trainer, Joe Gallagher, did not hesitate to implicate Boxxer however as he revealed a fight with Ivana Habazin (23-5, 7 KO’s) had been capable of being made over the past 3 to 4 months before Jonas’ fight with Habazin was officially announced:
“There’s been talks of fighting [Ivana Habazin], that fight’s been agreed and that’s the fight we’ve been told we’d be fighting,” Gallagher revealed to SecondsOut in an interview released on November 8.
“We’ve been told we were fighting for the last 3 , 4, 5 months. It hasn’t happened yet and we’re just waiting and see. It’s a shame really because I think there’s a good little series there of Natasha versus [Habazin].
“We’ll wait and see what happens with Tasha but Tasha knows, and I’ve asked her for the last 3 or 4 months just to retire. You’ve achieved what you needed to achieve, you’ve got a good job [commentating] with [SkySports] and just hang up your gloves and walk away.
“The way you’ve been treated, disrespected, in the last 11 months, it’s shocking to be fair. She [Jonas] fought in January and you ask the people involved [Boxxer], why is your world champion―who was ‘Boxer of the Year’ last year―not had a fight all year? And we’re in the month of November. That’s a terrible way to treat somebody, any champion―male or female.“
While Natasha Jonas has now been confirmed to be competing in a unification 147 lbs bout against WBC champion Ivana Habazin come December 14―in her home city of Liverpool, there was a sizeable window for a fight between Jonas and Habazin to be arranged since the latter won the WBC title in April.
Fortunately for Jonas, she might yet gain the opportunity to end her career on a positive note after Boxxer revealed a Jonas victory during the upcoming Jonas-Habazin bout would grant the British champion the opportunity to face the winner between WBA 147 lbs champion Lauren Price (7-0, 1 KO’s) and Brazilian contender Bexcy Mateus (7-0, 6 KO’s)―who are fighting on the same card as Jonas on December 14.
With Price signed to Boxxer like Jonas, there is therefore a high possibility of the two stablemates meeting each other somewhere in 2025 to stage an in-house unification bout between two world champions.
