Terri Harper: A New Weight. A Different Fighter?

Terri Harper: A New Weight. A Different Fighter?

Unless my memory fails me, Terri Harper will enter new territory on Saturday night when she makes her now regular short pilgrimage to Sheffield.

It won’t just be a new weight division for Harper as she bids to become a three-weight world champion. But the Denaby fighter will enter her fight with Sandy Ryan as the betting underdog. For almost certainly the first time in her professional career, Harper goes into a fight that she is not expected to win.

But in many ways, her fight with the WBO welterweight champion of the world could be exactly what she needs.

For the last few years, Harper does seem as though she has been fighting with the world on her shoulders. Since that sensational fight in 2020 against her great domestic rival Natasha Jonas, which made a believer out of many for their side of the sport, Harper, certainly on the outside, appears to be a fighter who is constantly feeling the pressure of her craft. Harper retained her unified world super-featherweight baubles courtesy of a hotly-disputed draw. The first blemish on her record after ten fights that left some proclaiming her to be the natural successor to Katie Taylor.

The confidence doesn’t seem the same since that night with the Liverpool fighter, and even more so after what Alycia Baumgardner did to her in 2021 in the very same ring where she will look to create history against Ryan.

When Harper returned five months after the Baumgardner defeat with a victory against the Argentinian Yamila Belen Abellaneda, you could visibly see Harper struggling to hold her emotions together in the immediate aftermath. You just knew what was on the line on that night in Nottingham. Everything.

The defeat to Baumgardner prompted Harper to leave the super-featherweight ranks behind. The incredibly short stay at lightweight for the comeback fight against Abellaneda was followed by a move through multiple weight divisions and a landing at super-welterweight.

The move to 154 always seemed to be one of convenience. Harper would have looked at the division with confidence that they could pick up a world title or two before dropping back down to a more natural weight when the doors opened for the big fights that Harper craves. And, it helped that her old rival had also decided her immediate aspirations belonged there also.

Harper hoped to land a big undisputed rematch with Jonas, but when the Liverpool fighter decided to go elsewhere, the Denaby fighter seemed lost in a weight division that offered very little in the way of big names, big fights and therefore, the big money.

Since the fight with Jonas, Harper has struggled somewhat to regain her momentum and confidence. But there have been fights where Harper has impressed. I thought she boxed really well despite breaking her hand in the fight after Jonas when she successfully defended her 130-pound baubles stopping Katharina Thanderz. I was ringside when she beat Hannah Rankin in Nottingham to win the WBA and IBO super-welterweight titles. Harper looked very good in her first fight at 154, cutting Rankin early and looking as though she might even stop her much bigger opponent before winning widely on the scorecards after ten rounds. It was hard to fault Harper that night.

But in two subsequent fights at the weight, Harper has struggled to hit the same heights again. A planned fight against Cecilia Brækhus last May fell away on the day of the fight due to the illness of her opponent. But Harper was given a slot on the Matchroom card a week later in Manchester. Ivana Habazin came in at short notice, and while she inevitably faded away in the later rounds and lost on points, Habazin gave enough of a warning in the early rounds to cause more than a touch of concern for the Harper supporters.

Harper won beyond doubt but didn’t really impress and struggled somewhat in the early stages with the physicality of her opponent. You can make justifiable allowances that Harper would have peaked a week earlier. But equally, Habazin came in at late notice, and despite being in training for another fight several weeks later, hadn’t started her hard sparring. So Habazin hadn’t yet peaked for her forthcoming fight. We need to consider both factors for balance. Either way, undoubtedly Harper has had better nights.

The fight with Brækhus was subsequently rescheduled, and I was ringside in Sheffield last October on a night where even the incredibly vocal and passionate faithful very quickly lost their voice. It was a fight that many in the arena soon lost interest in. Eddie Hearn screamed robbery at the end of a fight that left Harper with another draw on her record. In truth, it was anything but a robbery. It could have gone either way. A draw was perhaps the fair result. But I wondered how many people really cared.

Pre-fight, I couldn’t see Harper losing. I couldn’t even see it being remotely competitive. At 41, Brækhus was written off as over the hill, and while she proved that she had some life left in her career, it was still an extremely tough watch. It could just have been a fight where they cancelled each other out. It happens. But I saw it as another little indication that Harper doesn’t really belong at 154. Just maybe, it could be something more.

But the fight with Sandy Ryan could just be what Terri Harper needs. Many, certainly coming off the disappointment from the Brækhus fight, will give her little chance of winning. But having shared rounds in sparring with Ryan, does Harper know something we don’t?

The move to a more natural weight could give Harper everything that has been missing in recent years. Even though she has been in world title fights, and won a second world title, the big names haven’t been on her resume. At welterweight, that will change. A win over Ryan and an old rival could be in her future once again.

Jonas, who is now a world champion at welterweight, is highly unlikely to be that fighter, but Mikaela Mayer might be. A big unification fight at super-featherweight that was lost when Harper was frozen on the spot by the power punches of Alycia Baumgardner, could quite easily be back on at 147 should Harper upset the odds. Make no mistake, Mayer is more than interested in fighting the winner of Saturday night’s fight.

But Mayer isn’t the only possible future opponent for her at welterweight. Lauren Price challenges Jessica McCaskill in May for her remaining welterweight baubles. Harper, with a victory in Sheffield, will not be short of potential big-name opposition. Beat Ryan, and everything changes.

“Big fights mean big money! It puts that extra fire in your belly,” Harper told Boxing News last year. The fight with Ryan, is very much that moment.

Ryan is 1/5 to turn back the challenge of Harper. But the 4-1 odds on offer for Harper to win a third world title do seem more than a little tempting. The 5-1 on offer for a points victory even more so. The frame of Harper is far more suited to welterweight than it ever was seven pounds higher. Could we see a completely different fighter at 147?

We’ve seen Ryan make hard work of fights previously, although her unification fight with Jessica McCaskill in which the British fighter was only given a draw, was quite simply daylight robbery. Ryan won that fight beyond any reasonable doubt. But we have seen Ryan not fighting to her strengths before. Do that against Harper, and she could wake up on Sunday morning with a second defeat on her record. Harper, is, as they say, a live underdog. She could even be much more than that.

It could be a much closer fight than many people think. Harper does her best work early in the fight, and you can certainly make a case for her putting rounds in the bank before Ryan finds any real rhythm. Win, lose, or dare I say, draw, I don’t see a repeat of Harper’s previous fight against Brækhus. The fight against Ryan will be far more of a crowd-pleasing affair.

Sheffield has been a mixed bag for Harper. A case of the good, the bad, and the ugly. But if she gets the good start she so badly needs against Ryan, the ‘hometown’ faithful could roar her on to another famous victory in that old Sheffield Arena.

Harper says the big fights bring out the best in her. Maybe the fights over the last few years have left her with nothing to gain and everything to lose. Is that what has been missing? She has admitted to feeling anxious before her fights. Could that be taking away plenty from her most recent performances? Now that she is the hunter once more, will we see the best version of Harper yet? Quite possibly.

She calls it a must-win fight. But on Saturday night, Terri Harper has everything to gain. For the first time in four years, Harper will be able to fight with some semblance of freedom. She will hope that will be the difference. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility, that it just might be.