Savannah Marshall will be at a disadvantage when she attempts to claim her first world championship as a pro, according to her rival for the vacant WBO middleweight title, Hannah Rankin.
Scotland's Rankin (9-4, 2 KOs) is a former IBO super-welterweight champion and has unsuccessfully challenged pound-for-pound great Claressa Shields for the WBA, WBC and IBF middleweight belts.
And although Marshall (8-0, 6 KOs) wants her own fight against Shields, whose only boxing defeat in any capacity came at the amateur level to the former Team GB Olympian, Rankin is adamant she can make the Brit regret targeting her as a pre-Shields appetizer.
"I lost my world title last year in a very close and controversial fight," Rankin explained to the Matchroom Boxing YouTube channel, in reference to her loss to Sweden's Patricia Berghult. "And then Marshall was straight on to social media after that saying ‘you need an opportunity, you should fight me’.
"I said ‘actually, I don’t need the opportunity, I have my own career plans’ but when the opportunity was offered to me in February after my last fight, I said ‘yeah, I’ll take it, absolutely’.
"It’s a great match. Two British fighters having a title fight. For me, it has always been on my radar. But then, we went into lockdown. But I knew the fight would come around again, and here we are now."
Marshall has fought predominantly at super middleweight and was even looking to move up rather than down in weight before lockdown threw all of boxing's plans into disarray.
Rankin believes she will be far more comfortable in her own skin than Marshall when 'The Silent Assassin' competes as a pro at the weight she fought much of her amateur spell.
"She hasn’t got anybody else to fight at her weight," claimed Rankin. "She was meant to be going up to light-heavyweight to fight Geovana Peres from New Zealand, but there was no way with lockdown that Perez was coming here, so I knew the fight had to come around again.
"I’m not going to try something new. I’ve been there before and I know how my body’s going to feel. I know how I’ll react to the challenges as a middleweight fighter. So it’ll be a bit of a disadvantage to her, as she’s never made middleweight and she has to come down.
"I’m sure she will make that weight - we’re both very professional so I’m sure she will - but then it’s gonna be (about) how she will feel. When we get into the later rounds, we’ll see how her body holds up.
"She’s not had much experience fighting anyone of a high level, really. And she hasn’t fought many fighters at her own weight. A lot of the girls have stepped up to her weight to fight her.
"This is going to be the first time she faces someone who has a full training camp coming into this fight. I’m coming to win, I’m taking that belt home, and it’s going to be a brand new experience for her.
"All we ever hear about is how she beat Claressa Shields in the amateurs. But as I said before, the amateurs is not the pros. Claressa has gone on to do some amazing things, she’s probably one of the best fighters we’re going to see in this generation. So to just talk about one amateur win is nothing, as far as I’m concerned.
"If Marshall is concentrating on that fight and looking past me, she’s in for a huge shock because she’s not getting past me on October 17, that world title’s coming home with me, and I don’t know where she’s going to go from there."
Savannah Marshall vs. Hannah Rankin, chief support to Lewis Ritson vs. Miguel Vazquez, airs live on Oct. 17 on Sky Sports in the U.K and on DAZN in the U.S.