STOCKTON, California – Former two-weight titleholder Yuliahn Luna wants to be a world champion once again.
Luna will face Skye Nicolson at the Adventist Health Arena in Stockton, California on Saturday. The 10-round junior featherweight bout is for the interim WBC title.
Luna, 28-4-1 (4 KOs), enters on a three-fight winning streak. The 31-year-old from Gomez Palacio, Mexico, last lost in 2023, losing her WBC bantamweight title to Dina Thorslund – a pound-for-pound level talent in women’s boxing. Luna has previously beaten Mariana Juarez and the current WBA junior featherweight titleholder, Mayelli Flores Rosquero.
“I have that hunger to be world champion once again,” Luna told BoxingScene through a translator. “I am going to go into this fight with a huge hunger and huge courage, to take that crown back to Mexico. I have faced some really tough opponents in the past. I think this is an opportunity God has given me, and I don’t intend to let it pass me by.”
Nicolson, 14-1 (3 KOs), a 2020 Olympian and former belt holder, is now fighting at junior featherweight for the third time after losing her strap and her “0” to Tiara Brown in February. Nicolson, a 30-year-old from Queensland, Australia, is skilled at keeping her opponent on the end of a long jab and counter left hand.
Luna was set to fight in October, but the bout fell through and that training camp carried over into this fight camp.
“It has been a really hard camp, but we had to put in that sacrifice,” Luna said. “I believe that if you put in that sacrifice, you predict the success.”
Luna didn’t want to predict the outcome of the fight, but promised the level of intensity it would be fought.
“To be honest, I prefer to do my talking in the ring,” Luna said by way of prediction. “What I can assure you is that it is going to be a war.”
