Ten­nille Al­leyne

Thir­ty-three-year-old box­ing champ Ria Ram­nar­ine be­gan her ca­reer in Mar­tial Arts then en­tered the box­ing ring at age 21. The Cara­pichaima res­i­dent has risen to in­ter­na­tion­al fame as T&T's pre­mier women's box­er, hav­ing se­cured many World Fly­weight ti­tles in the box­ing and kick­box­ing are­na. Ram­nar­ine has trav­elled glob­al­ly, chal­leng­ing op­po­nents in Ger­many, Cana­da, Eng­land and An­guil­la, de­liv­er­ing her fierce jabs and punch­es. She is cur­rent­ly prepar­ing for her up­com­ing en­counter in Night of the Cham­pi­ons at the Jean Pierre Com­plex in Mu­cu­rapo on Ju­ly 29.

Ques­tion: You have a ma­jor fight com­ing up on Ju­ly 29 against Russ­ian op­po­nent, Anas­ta­sia Tok­tu­alo­va. What's your state of mind?

An­swer: I am feel­ing pret­ty con­fi­dent. I have a great team who have been work­ing very hard with me and I know I am ca­pa­ble of de­feat­ing my op­po­nent.

Q: Is there any­thing your op­po­nent should know be­fore she steps in the ring with Ria Ram­nar­ine?

A: Well I sup­pose she should know that I would pre­fer if she is well pre­pared for the fight. A good fight­er brings out the best in me.

Q: This match will be tak­ing place at the Jean Pierre Com­plex, what's the dif­fer­ence com­pet­ing at home com­pared to abroad?

A: When you have the home crowd urg­ing you on it makes a big dif­fer­ence. You get the pos­i­tive vibes and it trans­forms to ad­di­tion­al en­er­gy and de­ter­mi­na­tion. Over­seas it is some­times harsh but it could be okay be­cause then you are the un­der­dog and you have noth­ing to lose.

Q: How do you men­tal­ly pre­pare for your match­es?

A: I stay away from talk show pro­grammes, the news­pa­pers and naysay­ers, thus keep­ing my mind clear and at ease. For a few days or a week be­fore the fight, I try not to think of my op­po­nent or the fight it­self.

Q: Your over­seas base is in Fort Laud­erdale, Flori­da where you train. What's the at­mos­phere like train­ing with oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al fe­male box­ing cham­pi­ons?

A: You have to earn your re­spect, know your place. There is the sense of each fight­er want­i­ng the most out of a ses­sion and as such it be­comes friend­ly but stiff com­pe­ti­tion. Af­ter blood­y­ing each oth­er's noses or leav­ing a few scars, we usu­al­ly go for lunch to­geth­er.

Q: Do you have a spe­cial di­et as a pro box­er?

A: I won't say I have a spe­cial di­et but I am care­ful about what I eat.

Q: Who has been your tough­est com­peti­tor thus far?

A: My­self.

Q: At one point you were tele­vised throw­ing away the belts/ti­tles you had won over the years. How did you get to that point and what has changed since then?

A: Af­ter be­com­ing the first fe­male world box­ing cham­pi­on of T&T in 2005, I was treat­ed with scant cour­tesy bor­der­ing on gross dis­re­spect by some box­ing of­fi­cials and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials at the time. Where­as oth­ers were be­ing as­sist­ed in their ca­reers, my coach and I were more or less black­list­ed. With­out much choice I was forced to high­light this by do­ing what I did. Fun­ny enough, more box­ers got more help, ex­cept me of course. In 2009 we de­cid­ed to bridge gaps with Uni­fied Pro­mot­ers and since then I am able to se­cure more fights and bet­ter purs­es for my bouts.

Q: In May this year, you "sparred ver­bal­ly" with tech­ni­cal ad­vi­sor to the T&T Am­a­teur Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion Fran­chot Moore, ac­cus­ing him of try­ing to sab­o­tage your ca­reer af­ter a con­tro­ver­sial pos­i­tive test­ing of a banned sub­stance. Would you like to clear this up?

A: Mr Moore has ac­cused oth­ers of us­ing me and my name to get their ca­reers and/or names in the me­dia. How­ev­er he is the one do­ing that right now. His lies and ac­cu­sa­tions start­ed be­fore the test­ing and he has re­cent­ly been telling nu­mer­ous lies re­gard­ing the test it­self. I un­der­stand that be­cause of my as­so­ci­a­tion with Uni­fied Pro­mot­ers he has sin­gled me out as the ve­hi­cle he can use to bad mouth and trash talk Mr Potts. What I would like to make clear is that I was found with one banned sub­stance in my sys­tem. A sub­stance that baf­fled even my doc­tor and it was on­ly af­ter, through re­search of the med­ica­tions ad­min­is­tered to me, it was as­cer­tained how I test­ed pos­i­tive. Need­less to say, it was med­ica­tion used for a per­son­al med­ical con­di­tion. I was found in­no­cent of de­lib­er­ate sub­stance or per­for­mance en­hance­ment use or abuse. My sen­tence was more or less a les­son to my­self and all ath­letes that we should be more care­ful of what we are ad­min­is­tered.

Q: Do you feel any pres­sure to achieve af­ter the death of one of T&T's box­ing icons, Giselle Sa­landy?

A: No. I have al­ways stat­ed and will con­tin­ue to state that I have no wish to re­place Ms Sa­landy. She was a cham­pi­on in her own right and I be­lieve it will be un­fair both to her and my­self to say that I need to fill her shoes.

Q: Is there any­thing you would like to im­prove about the sport in T&T?

A: One of the most im­por­tant things is that all box­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors and the box­ers need to be able to work to­geth­er. We are but a small coun­try, too small to be di­vid­ed par­tic­u­lar­ly in the sport of box­ing.

Q: What's your re­la­tion­ship like with Boxu Potts now?

A: My deal­ings with him thus far has al­ways been above board and while he is no longer my pro­mot­er, we share a mu­tu­al re­spect and un­der­stand­ing.

Q: You are 33 years old now, when do you plan to re­tire from box­ing?

A: (Laugh­ing) Well I had planned to be re­tired by now. Since it didn't work out that way, I'd say maybe a year or a year-and-a-half again. My coach­es seem to have oth­er ideas though. In oth­er words, "Ria dear, we think you can box for an­oth­er good three or four years!"

Q: Is it (box­ing ) your full time job?

A: For the past two-and-a-half years, yes. Pri­or to that I worked as the Trinidad man­ag­er for a for­eign met­al re­cy­cling com­pa­ny, an ac­counts clerk, a process plant op­er­a­tor in Na­tion­al Flour Mills and al­so as a pri­vate tu­tor. How­ev­er, with the hard­ships to pro­mote the fights reg­u­lar­ly, I just may have to re­turn to a usu­al 7 am to 4 pm job.

Q: Do you have any oth­er pas­sions in life?

A: Yes, a few ac­tu­al­ly, pho­tog­ra­phy be­ing one.

Q: Does your fo­cus on box­ing im­pede your per­son­al life?

A: There is a time and place for every­thing. While I do miss some fam­i­ly gath­er­ings or beach limes or what­ev­er, I am usu­al­ly cool about it. I sim­ply pri­ori­tise.

Q: Do peo­ple of­ten find you in­tim­i­dat­ing be­cause you are a pro box­er?

A: I don't think so. I look as harm­less as a but­ter­fly when I'm out of the ring. (smil­ing)

Q: What's your sta­tus-mar­ried/in love/sin­gle?

A: Ac­cord­ing to the law of the land I am sin­gle. Ac­cord­ing to the laws of love, well I just might ac­tu­al­ly be mar­ried!

Q: What would most peo­ple not know about you?

A: Hmm...I do eat choco­late, cake and ice cream...and I have a col­lec­tion of ted­dy bears.

Q: What are some words of ad­vice for fe­males wish­ing to en­ter the box­ing are­na?

A: While it can be tough at times, it is won­der­ful­ly unique. Con­trary to the be­lief that there is on­ly vi­o­lence and bru­tal­i­ty, it is ac­tu­al­ly a very dis­ci­plined, sci­en­tif­ic and amaz­ing sport. Do it. Don't let any­one or any­thing stop you. And the old adage that it is sup­posed to be man's sport has long been proven wrong.