Jamaica's female World Boxing Council (WBC) super bantamweight champion, Alicia 'Slick' Ashley, arrived in Panama on Monday for her world title fight on Saturday night against Panamanian Chanttal Martinez, at the Roberto Duran Arena. She had been training in Argentina for the past two weeks.

She told STAR Sports it was a great experience and she was able to get much better sparring there than in New York, where she is based. The war of words, she said, has also started. It actually started before she arrived. At a press conference on her arrival she was greeted with the news that her opponent had told the media that she has every intention of making Ashley retire from the sport.

There has been a lot of attention being paid to the age difference between the opponents, because Ashley is 45 and Martinez is 22. Her response to this, she told STAR Sports, was that she will be "taking the youngster to school."

"Tell Miss Martinez that the principal is in town and even though you are half my age, you cannot beat me," Ashley said in a message to her opponent.

Ashley added: "People are always playing up this age difference. With age comes experience which should not be underrated. She will not know what to do when 'experience' is in front of her on Saturday. I like when my opponents boast about what they are going to do to me, and it is that much sweeter when I shut them up."

She also told STAR Sports that working at high altitude in Salta, Argentina, for the past weeks was great for her. "Now that I am back at sea level and the temperature is in the 90s I feel great," she said.

- L.B.