Early in February 2008 British Featherweight Marianne Marston left her London home and travelled to America to train full-time under the watchful eyes of the legendary Heavyweight World Champion Smokin’ Joe Frazier – who, on Marianne, says quite simply “She’s going to be the Champ” – and his son, Olympic Gold Medallist & Heavyweight contender, Marvis Frazier at their gym in Philadelphia..
Marvis backs up what his father says and adds “Marianne is the hardest working (training), committed fighters I have seen in a long time” then with a huge grin continues “She’s very hard for any fighter to deal with” before expanding this by saying “she’s strong, fast and accurate, has lots of combinations and punches hard, so hard it’s like being hit by a Heavyweight.”
Travelling backwards and forwards across timezones and thousands of miles has made it hard for Marianne to maintain a consistent regime and so after taking advice from her main coaches, Marvis Frazier and Val Colbert, she to commit herself completely to boxing by moving to Philadelphia to spend six months full-time training at Fraziers Gym and plans to make her professional debut under their guidance.
When asked why she chose Frazier’s Gym over the other first class gyms she has trained at, Marianne smiled and said “For me it wasn’t a matter of choosing, Frazier’s Gym feels like ‘home’ and the training team here are without doubt some of the best in the business, if not the best” and after a short pause she added “just look around this place, it’s full of boxing history. This is the gym that Joe trained at when he become World Champion and when he beat Ali – it fires me up, makes me want to work as hard as he did, and hopefully that will lead to me being as successful in this sport as he was”