New Zealand boxer Lani Daniels, a three-weight world champion after her latest triumph in New York at the weekend, is looking forward to \u201csome kai and a rest\u201d before setting her sights on her next challenge.<\/p>\n
Daniels, from Pipiwai Bush in Whang\u0101rei, arrived in Auckland this morning after beating American Shadasia Green for the IBF and WBO world super middleweight belts at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n
Daniels, 37, went into the fight a big underdog after losing her two previous bouts, but stopped Green with a flurry of unanswered punches in the ninth round of a fight scheduled for 10.<\/p>\n
She was behind on the scorecards of two of the three judges and her late onslaught resulted in her opponent being taken to hospital. Green was later cleared of serious injury.<\/p>\n
Daniels, previously a heavyweight and light heavyweight world champion, had lost her belts in her two defeats to Clarissa Shields and Sarah Scheurich respectively. <\/p>\n
Asked by 1News this morning whether she was surprised by her performance, Daniels replied: \u201cNow we\u2019re on home soil, I\u2019m not surprised. I believe we haven\u2019t scraped the surface of what I\u2019m capable of. I needed that fight to remind me because I kind of lost it along the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be the best version of myself and I don\u2019t think the boxing world has seen that. There are still a few fights left for Lani Daniels.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked whether she would consider a rematch against the undefeated Shields, who congratulated Daniels by posting \u201cwell done champ\u201d on social media afterwards, Daniels said: \u201cSure, because I believe in that fight I wasn\u2019t myself. She inspired me to make the changes I needed to make and this fight cemented that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniels lost to Shields by a wide points margin but is unlikely to face her again in the near future.<\/p>\n
She still has fights with Jake Paul\u2019s MVP promotional company and will require careful managing to make the most of her success in a sport which offers few rewards for the majority of its female competitors.<\/p>\n
Shane Cameron: ‘That’s wicked’<\/p>\n
New Zealand boxing identity Shane Cameron, who has supported Daniels with equipment and funding, told 1News: \u201cShe was a major underdog\u2026 and to come away with a stoppage to be a unified champion of the world\u2026 that\u2019s wicked \u2013 hopefully she gets a lot of credit for that and a lot of money, she deserves it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a hard game that she\u2019s in and girls just don\u2019t get the recognition they deserve.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like supporting people because I know what it\u2019s like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniels said of Cameron, the Commonwealth Games medallist and former New Zealand heavyweight champion: \u201cHe\u2019s supported me from my first title fight\u2026 he\u2019s been the only person in my camp apart from my wh\u0101nau who has actually supported me as such.\u201d<\/p>\n
Daniels also won the highly regarded Ring magazine super middleweight belt. While she was not presented with the spoils of victory after her fight, the belts were \u201cin the mail\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand boxer Lani Daniels, a three-weight world champion after her latest triumph in New York at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2023,111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-389215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-boxing","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=389215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}