Talented and hard-punching Caroline Dubois might only be 6-0 but trainer Shane McGuigan believes she will become a star, and that the precocious 22-year-old will be ready to face Mikaela Mayer by the end of the year.
Dubois returns to the ring on June 16 in London against Argentine Yanina del Carmen Lescano, who is 13-2, but after that, McGuigan wants it to be all systems go on a quick charge up the rankings. Mayer is 32-years-old and 18-1.
“We want Mikaela Mayer at the end of the year,” McGuigan said. “Whether Mikaela Mayer wants that I’m not too sure. Caroline is ready. She’s ready for those fights. She really is. Six month’s time… she’s ready for them. She needs a breakout fight, and I believe why not take Mikaela Mayer. Alycia Baumgardner doesn’t want to give her a rematch, there’s a massive appetite for female boxing over here, not necessarily as much in the States. That’s a headliner.”
McGuigan thinks Dubois’s story also will raise her starpower, and that she could be a huge commercial draw and become one of the faces of boxing.
“[She’s a] Phenomenal fighter,” Shane continued. “I feel like she has the personality to do that. Her life is going to blow up in the next 18 months. She needs the right fights but she’s a really nice girl. She’s unbelievable at boxing, and from a promotional standpoint she has a network [Sky Sports] behind her. She has a freedom to pick and choose who she wants and she’s also got the budget to bring in some names, and that’s what a lot of fighters miss. “When we had Chantelle [Cameron] at the start, we didn’t have the budget to bring the big names in, but Sky do and that’s fantastic.”
And Dubois appreciates McGuigan’s faith in her.
“It gives me assurances,” Dubois said. “It’s good when there are people around you and they’re saying what you know, and if you’re performing well, it’s good when you have people around you believing in you and not doubting you and saying, ‘Yeah, you’re going to go all the way.’”
That positivity is contagious. Caroline’s brother, heavyweight Daniel, recently left the gym and joined Don Charles following family issues but Caroline’s relationship with Shane is thriving and they are just at the start.
“I feel like it’s improving,” Dubois continued. “Over the years, I’m very laid back, very private as it goes, and I feel like we’re starting to get to know each other a bit more now. As a coach, you have to have a good relationship with your fighter and you can’t just walk in and walk out of the gym… So when you’re in a fight and it gets hard, you know the right things to say, you know what is going to click with that person and get them to do what they need to do. I think our relationship is getting to that level where we understand each other and start to understand where we are coming from and what we’re trying to say.”
As a fighter, Dubois believes he has already improved “leaps and bounds” under McGuigan, giving her more confidence, working on the inside, slowing the pace of a fight down and improving self-belief, which she clearly has in a charming rather than arrogant way.
But like her coach, she does not want a slow path. She wants big names and big tests and sooner rather than later.
“I want to move at a great pace,” Dubois stated. “I don’t want to be waiting. I feel it would be a waste of my time and a waste of the public’s time for me to get in a ring and just knock them out and beat them up. For me it would be boring. It would be genuinely boring. I always say when I’m stepping up and fighting a good person, that will be fun, because it will be fun for me. Stepping in the ring with a good name, it will really help ignite that fire. I want to be in those dangerous 50-50 fights. I miss being an amateur when you’re stepping in the ring against a world No. 1 or No. 2 and it’s just a great feeling because when you win, it means so much more.”
Dubois looks up to the likes of Baumgardner and Claressa Shields and McGuigan sees her as the future and Dubois is in a hurry to get there.
“I feel like I need to be overperforming every time I step in the ring,” she concluded. “I need to keep winning, and winning in the style I’m winning at. It’s great now, but when I step up and start fighting harder people, I need to be doing more or less the same. It will get to the point where the public demands I step up, it’s not just us calling for it.”
