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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - It’s three days before a fight… and Chevelle Hallback is a portrait of calm.
Her muscles are toned. Her technique is refined. Her conditioning is perfected.
But on the inside things are not nearly as, errr… settled.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “Every time I eat, I can’t hold anything on my stomach. Three or four times a day, I have to run to the bathroom. And when I do sit down to eat, I don’t have an appetite.
“Everything I eat comes right out of me.”
The affable Floridian has fought 39 times in 10 states and five countries over a decade-and-a-half as a pro, but concedes each ring approach at least temporarily shapes up to be the last.
This Friday, when she’ll perform for just the second time in front of fans, family and friends in her Tampa hometown… those ever-present butterflies are even larger and more fluttery.
“From now until I get in there is when I question myself,” she said. “It gets so bad that I always insist to myself, ‘This is my last fight. This is my last fight. This is my last fight.’
“I say it every single time. But once I get through the ropes, as soon as I step in, I’m OK.”
Assuming she indeed completes the trip from locker room to corner, Hallback will encounter a familiar foe – 36-year-old Kentuckian Terri Blair – whom she beat by unanimous decision on a women’s card at the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, Calif.
And while six fights, three failed title shots and five years have passed since that competitive eight-rounder, the personal stakes have rarely been higher for the tattooed slugger known as “Fists of Steel.”
Not only is it Hallback’s first appearance in Tampa since a three-round no-decision with Melissa Del Valle in 2005, it’s also billed as the first show with an all-female main event in Florida history. [Click Here To Read More]
Her muscles are toned. Her technique is refined. Her conditioning is perfected.
But on the inside things are not nearly as, errr… settled.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “Every time I eat, I can’t hold anything on my stomach. Three or four times a day, I have to run to the bathroom. And when I do sit down to eat, I don’t have an appetite.
“Everything I eat comes right out of me.”
The affable Floridian has fought 39 times in 10 states and five countries over a decade-and-a-half as a pro, but concedes each ring approach at least temporarily shapes up to be the last.
This Friday, when she’ll perform for just the second time in front of fans, family and friends in her Tampa hometown… those ever-present butterflies are even larger and more fluttery.
“From now until I get in there is when I question myself,” she said. “It gets so bad that I always insist to myself, ‘This is my last fight. This is my last fight. This is my last fight.’
“I say it every single time. But once I get through the ropes, as soon as I step in, I’m OK.”
Assuming she indeed completes the trip from locker room to corner, Hallback will encounter a familiar foe – 36-year-old Kentuckian Terri Blair – whom she beat by unanimous decision on a women’s card at the Pechanga Resort & Casino in Temecula, Calif.
And while six fights, three failed title shots and five years have passed since that competitive eight-rounder, the personal stakes have rarely been higher for the tattooed slugger known as “Fists of Steel.”
Not only is it Hallback’s first appearance in Tampa since a three-round no-decision with Melissa Del Valle in 2005, it’s also billed as the first show with an all-female main event in Florida history. [Click Here To Read More]
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