After a stoppage win against Katharina Thanderz this time last year, Terri Harper was close to making another step towards becoming the undisputed women’s champion at super-featherweight.
A fight with WBA champion Hyun Mi Choi was set for May 2021 and despite sustaining a broken hand which required surgery against Thandrez, Harper was confident it would hold up in her pursuit of glory. However, a snapped plate resulted in a re-fracture and forced the fight with Choi to be cancelled.
For some fighters an injury which keeps them out of a career defining fight can have negative effects on their mental wellbeing, but for Harper, it allowed her to refocus, train hard in the gym and not think what might have been if her hand was in a good enough condition for the Choi fight.
“It’s been a long tough year, but I’ve been in the gym constantly, I’ve not been at home feeling sorry for myself,” Harper told DAZN in an exclusive interview.
“When I had the operation, it forced me out of the gym for a couple of weeks, but other than that I’ve been training, learning and getting better every day.”
The broken hand re-surfacing couldn’t have come at a worse time for Harper, however, the Doncaster fighter believed giving the hand extra time to recover was a blessing.
“When I did injure my hand again, we were questioning whether I do local anaesthetic on the hand for the fight, and we were clinging onto the hope of having that fight,” Harper said.
“When we realised how serious the injury was, that’s when Andrew [Bulcroft, Harper’s manager] it was too big of a risk to go out there with an injury and not 100%.
“He was the one that made the decision and not have the fight. As gutted as I was, it was a blessing in disguise, and I believe it was the best decision.”
As mentioned before, some fighters would struggle in a similar situation and for someone like Harper where boxing has played a major part in her life, this setback was potentially the biggest challenge of her career so far.
“Boxing’s all I know, so this was not just one of the biggest setbacks in my career, but in my whole life so it was a new feeling for me, so I had to learn how to deal with that,” Harper explained.
“When I had the first operation on my hand after the Thanders fight, I thought that’s it, all’s well, I was told that hand would never break again, I took it as I could use my hand as normal.
“Then at Christmas time I was opening a jar and snapped the plate.”
It’s rare a fighter steps into the ring fully fit. More often than not they are nursing some kind of injury and take risks hoping their body can withstand the punishment its about to endure and in turn not make the injury worse.
Luckily for Harper the broken hand re-surfacing meant it could be given more time to heal and not suffer any career threatening damage.
“We were confident it would last the fight camp and get it sorted out after, and then when it went again in the camp for Choi, I instantly knew it was seriously damaged and we couldn’t go on.
“We were just really focused the second time after the injury and I still don’t open jars properly now.”
Harper then went onto show DAZN News the awkward method she now uses to open jars.
“We followed the planning that Mike gave us to come back and gradually got back into punching.
“We started off in the gym just doing my conditioning stuff with Danny and then shadow boxing and each week just gradually progress to the point where I was back punching.”
The end of this long road to recovery is in sight for Harper when she defends her WBC and IBO super-featherweight titles against Alycia Baumgardner on Saturday night in Sheffield, and she will be hoping this can be the start of her own road to undisputed and not another period rocked by an injury.
Watch Harper vs. Baumgardner on November 13th exclusively on DAZN (Except in Australia and New Zealand).