\n Kings-Wheatley was in complete control as she defeated Papua New Guinea\u2019s Petronella Nokenoke in a unanimous points decision.\n<\/p>\n
\n It was the perfect start for the Birmingham boxer, who admitted there were a few nerves ahead of her Commonwealth Games debut.\n<\/p>\n
\n But the 23-year-old relished them with her usual pre-match ritual of listening to music \u2013 even if her song choice is not the classic pre-fight hype song.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI listen to a bit of everything,\u201d she said. \u201cI’ve listened to quite a bit of Frank Sinatra this week. It’s nice and slow. Sometimes I’ll get a bit of rap on as well. I just try to mix it up.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI just listen to music before I get in the ring, tell myself what I want to do in there, tell myself I’m going for gold, and just keep my confidence up.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI sort of just embrace the nerves. I think they’re fuel. You can either have them defeat you or have them bring you up to the next level, and that’s what they do for me.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Kings-Wheatley produced a fast start to take control of the fight but had to adjust when her opponent switched to a southpaw stance in the second round.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Papua New Guinean started to swing in search of a stoppage, but Kings-Wheatley kept her head to avoid doing Somethin’ Stupid and progress to the next round.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cIn the first round we got the rhythm going and got the count in the first round,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThen she switched to southpaw and I came back to the corner and was like, it’s confusing me a little bit. Graham, my coach, just said to keep calm, keep being hungry.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cA stoppage could have happened, but I didn’t want to rush my feet or mess up my work. Graham just said, \u2018Keep calm, don’t try and force the stoppage. Just get through the bout and get the experience.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Kings-Wheatley is making her Commonwealth debut at Glasgow 2026 and is loving the experience that will last at least one more fight in the women\u2019s 60kg competition.\n<\/p>\n
\n She said: \u201cI was super nervous going into it, but got some good work done and got a little bit of confidence.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cSpending time with the England team, being in the village, being introduced first and boxing out in the red corner, it was amazing.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cI have just going to keep that momentum going now. Keep being explosive in there, keep in my rhythm.\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cMy best work comes out when I’m enjoying myself, keeping it flowing and not overthinking.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n Thanks to National Lottery players, more than \u00a333m is raised every week for good causes. It\u2019s because of you that sport, arts, heritage and community projects, as well as our athletes competing at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games, are supported across the UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kings-Wheatley was in complete control as she defeated Papua New Guinea\u2019s Petronella Nokenoke in a unanimous points decision.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-821620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}