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Caroline Dubois plans to reopen Terri Harper’s "mental scars" when they clash for The Ring lightweight title on Easter Sunday.
The pair are set to headline MVP’s first ever show on U.K. soil at London’s Olympia, where Dubois’ WBC title and Harper’s WBO belt will also be on the line.
Undefeated Dubois (12-0-1, 5 KOs), The Ring’s No. 1-rated lightweight, is the heavy betting favourite against Harper (16-2-2, 6 KOs), who is four years her senior at 29.
And Dubois believes Harper’s two career defeats will come back to haunt her once the going gets tough at Olympia.
“She has been knocked out by Alycia Baumgardner and stopped by Sandy Ryan when she quit,” Dubois told The Ring. “Those results will definitely leave mental scars.
“She has had hard fights with Cecilia Braekhus and Hannah Rankin too so she will have an element of fear inside her. It’s up to me to reignite that fear and remind her what it feels like to be in a hard fight and hit by a big puncher.
“When she gets those memories we will all see how she reacts and I believe she will fold. She won’t come towards me because she knows if she does she is going to get hit hard.
"I think she will be quite negative but will have a few moments where she will bite down on her gumshield and have a go so it’s up to me to put manners on her and show her who is boss.
“I’m the better fighter than her, I’m the better boxer, I’m stronger, more skilful and slick. I’m not going to let her land a glove on me, I’m going to show why there are levels in boxing. This is what it’s about, complete control and complete domination.”
In her quest for a dominant victory, Dubois took part of her training camp on the road to Henderson, Nevada, where she worked under Kay Koroma at Knuckleheads Boxing Club.
“I was only there for a short time,” said Dubois, who is trained by Shane McGuigan in London.
“I was out there just to get the benefits of good sparring because getting good sparring in the UK as a female is very difficult.
“I just wanted to experience some of that and also you've got the benefits of the altitude too. So there was the sparring and then the mountain runs as well. It was just another level and another tool to the box for this fight.”
Dubois has made no secret of her desire to secure a fight with the current unified junior lightweight champion Alycia Baumgardner and hopes victory over Harper might secure it.
And she says her performances at Knuckleheads has "changed opinions" on how that fight may go among Baumgardner’s compatriots.
She said: “By the time I left, they were all saying I would knock her out if we ever fought, so I definitely changed opinions there.
“But it’s cool to go into a boxing gym so far from home and people know who I am. That's the thing about boxing, it's a small world and names get around.
“It was good to be mixing in with all that, we got some very good work and the trip was a success.”
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