Natasha Jonas and Lauren Price both made weight ahead of Friday’s welterweight unification fight in London.

Jonas weighed in under the limit wearing a sweater and her trainer, Joe Gallagher, had by then asked to see the scales calibrated – pointing out that the preliminary fighters had all come in around a pound under their respective weight limits.

Jonas, the WBC and IBF champion, and Price, the titlist of the WBA, then shared an icy and lengthy staredown.

“I was light, with my clothes on,” laughed Jonas, 40, when speaking to Sky Sports. “She’s ready; I’m ready.”

Price, 30, said Gallagher was trying to make it about himself, but insisted: “I’m cool, calm, collected. I’m looking forward to going out and showing how good I am.”

"They're not calibrated scales," Gallagher said. "The sticker's up there on the screen, and they were calibrated 9th January. We're here in March. Once them scales have moved, they're not calibrated no more, and the sticker on it was 9th January. Everyone that weighed in went, 'They're light'.

"I'm only protecting Natasha, and when I hear Price is struggling with the weight... someone's just said to me, 'Tasha was 10st 6lbs', but she weighed in with all her clothes on. If she'd stripped them down she'd have been 10st 5lbs. But the point is you've got this huge, prestige event, and we can't get a proper set of calibrated scales.

"We're talking about world-title level. The Board [the British Boxing Board of Control] will turn round and say they're happy. Of course they are, but I've got to be careful here 'cause I'll get fined, but of course they're happy, because you haven't abided by the rules. They're not calibrated, and no one can produce a sticker showing today's date for the weigh-in.

"Sky [Sports, the broadcaster] will overrule me. The Board will overrule me. But I'm just abiding by the rules. There should be a set of scales for a world-title fight, calibrated, right here, right now."

The WBC lightweight champion Caroline Dubois, who meets her number-one contender Bo Mi Re Shin of South Korea, said: “We’re going to let our fists do the talking. All the talking is done… There’s nothing Bo can do to stop me. I’m coming for her head.”

Dubois and Shin went nose-to-nose after hitting the scales. Neither fighter gave an inch.

The Paris 2024 Olympian Cindy Ngamba had been scheduled to make her professional debut, against Kirstie Bavington, but according to promoters Boxxer: “A pre-fight medical examination revealed an issue requiring further inspection.”

 

Full weigh-in results

 

Ten rounds – IBF, WBA, WBC welterweight titles
Natasha Jonas (146 ½lbs)
Lauren Price (145lbs)


Ten rounds – WBC lightweight title
Caroline Dubois (133 ½lbs)
Bo Mi Re Shin (133lbs)

 

Ten rounds – British featherweight title
Karriss Artingstall (124 ½lbs)
Raven Chapman (124 ½lbs)

 

Ten rounds – European flyweight title
Chloe Watson (98 ¾lbs)
Jasmina Zapotoczna (98 ¾lbs)

 

Eight rounds – junior featherweight
Francesca Hennessy (120 ½lbs)
Gemma Ruegg (120 ½lbs)