A first professional fight can be a daunting task, even for elite Olympians. Caroline Dubois on the challenge of the transition as Tokyo bronze medallist Karriss Artingstall enters the professional sport tonight, live on Sky Sports
Saturday 25 June 2022 09:13, UK
Caroline Dubois has vowed to make the most of her enforced absence from the ring after her next fight date was unexpectedly postponed.
The Tokyo Olympian was due to box next Saturday (July 2), only for the show to be put back when illness ruled out Hughie Fury from the main event.
Dubois now considers the additional wait "a blessing in disguise".
"It's just given me more time now to get better, get stronger, get fitter, get faster, whatever. So then when I do turn up in the ring I'll be 100 per cent," she told Rob Tebbutt.
"I'm disappointed but this is boxing and especially professional boxing, this is what happens. One person pulls out the main card and the whole show's off and it's getting used to that experience."
Dubois has boxed twice this year, making her professional debut against Vaida Masiokaite in February.
She went the six-round distance then, a performance that left the Tokyo Olympian frustrated. The pressure is on in a first pro fight. By her second bout in March, Dubois had settled more when she stopped Martina Horgasz in just the first round.
"The first one I thought I rushed everything. I got in the ring, my amateur brain just switched on and, if I'm honest, I'd give that performance a 'C'. Like it was good and I got the victory, I won every round, every second. But it wasn't me, or what I wanted to do. I didn't practise that. I didn't do anything that I was practising and I was trying to do," Dubois said.
"But the second fight I was slowing the pace down, I was picking the shots better and that's what we want to do, keep moving forward from that performance."
Karriss Artingstall, one of Dubois' GB team-mates, has to go through that tricky transition herself when she fights for the first time as a professional tonight, live on Sky Sports, against Masiokaite too.
Artingstall is taking that first step now just like fellow Olympian Dubois and Tokyo gold medallist Lauren Price have done in recent months. She is expecting to impress as well.
Dubois had nothing but praise for Price's first foray into the pro ranks. "She boxed really, really well. She was using her feet really well, very fast hands, she's going to be one for the future," Dubois said.
"She can definitely make her claim at that weight and it's going to be good."
The young Londoner wants to keep the knockouts coming. Her recent inside-the-distance finish, Dubois predicts, will be the "first of many".
"I want to be someone like Amanda Serrano, one of those type of fighters, who brings stoppages as well as good performances. I want to excite people, so it's very important for me to put on a performance every time and hopefully get a stoppage," she said.
For the three Olympians, it is an exciting time to be starting out in women's pro boxing.
"Turning pro previously was like a no-go," Dubois said. "What are you turning pro for? You're not going to fight, if you do fight you're going to be fighting for peanuts, you're not going to be on TV, you're not going to get the promotion that you deserve.
"But now there's something to fight for and it's all thanks to these guys, Ben Shalom, Sky and all the other networks.
"All these people have done a great job at pushing female boxing and helping grow the sport of boxing as a whole. I'm just so happy to be a part of it."
Watch Karriss Artingstall's pro debut, Adam Azim, Sam Eggington vs Przemyslaw Zysk and more live on Sky Sports Action and Sky Sports Main Event tonight from 7pm.
