Chantelle Cameron: Beyond The Ropes

Chantelle Cameron: Beyond The Ropes

You sense 2026 is a very important year in the boxing career of Chantelle Cameron. The building blocks to what the former undisputed super-lightweight champion hopes will be a return to the glory years are seemingly now all in place.

Cameron hooked up with Jake Paul and his Most Valuable Promotions in 2025. Joining forces with MVP, who have invested so much time and money in women’s boxing, is an inspired move. Probably, the only move after her lengthy period of frustration. The Jake Paul effect, with his millions of many things, will give Cameron what she needs the most as she enters the final stages of her career. But another move, maybe the most important decision of recent times, sets up Cameron quite nicely for what could be an incredibly productive year for the 34-year-old. In what she describes as coming home, Cameron has once again returned to Jamie Moore and Nigel Travis and the gym where she enjoyed the greatest period of her career.

The past few years have seen Cameron go on the road, training with Grant Smith in Sheffield, and more recently, Stephen Smith in Liverpool. Two quality coaches, and Cameron is fully appreciative of what both environments have given her. But something has been missing, and sometimes you go in search of something that you already have. Cameron isn’t the first fighter, and she won’t be the last, to test the waters in a different gym before returning to a place where she feels the most comfortable. After all, home is where the heart is.

There was a special bond between fighter and coach as Cameron went undisputed at 140. Cameron was at her very best in that Moore/Travis era. That is no slight on either Grant or Stephen Smith, but for Cameron, Moore and Travis gave Cameron something that couldn’t be replicated elsewhere. There has been no criticism or harsh words, no falling out, just Cameron returning to a family-like environment, familiar ground. Her safe place. Where she was happiest. Sometimes in life, a fighter needs a little more than a coach. Online critics will critique from a distance and without context, but only that fighter will understand that point.

Cameron has seen her career stagnate somewhat since that pivotal rematch with Katie Taylor in 2023. The Northampton fighter has fought three times since, including her MVP debut in July against Jessica Camara, but like with other parts of her boxing life, she has been looking for something more. 2026 could be the year when it comes.

At 34, Cameron still has plenty to give. If the move back to Moore and Travis is the missing piece of the jigsaw, the next eighteen months or so could be really productive and rewarding for a fighter who is still the only fighter to defeat Taylor as a professional. A win that didn’t get the credit it deserved at the time. And still doesn’t. MVP will certainly provide enough opportunities to satisfy the cravings for a return to the big nights.

Jake Paul and MVP have signed an elite stable of British female fighters, including the likes of Ellie Scotney, Savannah Marshall, Caroline Dubois, Terri Harper, and others, and if, as expected, MVP secure a UK broadcast deal with Sky Sports, Cameron will be in the right place at the right time. I am of the understanding that MVP will be coming over to the UK in April for a London show, and if that does indeed materialise, Cameron will surely feature. There is now a clear road ahead for those big nights; everything is now in place to give Cameron what she has been missing for over the past two years. There are plenty of big fights out there for Cameron, including a potential fight with Mikaela Mayer, who currently holds world titles at welterweight and super-welterweight. Both have previously expressed a desire to share a ring together; it would be a shame if we never see that fight. But Mayer isn’t her only option.

But whoever is next for Chantelle Cameron, maybe that search for true happiness in a sport, which hasn’t always treated her well, is now at an end. A little detail that shouldn’t be overlooked. In many ways, Cameron appears to have found what she has been looking for.