English featherweight Marianne Marston felt her ‘American dream’ was over after the sudden closure of Smokin’ Joe Frazier’s Gym at the end of March 2008, but just 10 days later, as she was seriously considering either returning to London or relocating to Los Angeles to train at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym, a friend suggested she try-out for Percy "Buster"
Custus at The James Shuler Memorial Gym in West Philadelphia.

She did and was invited back the following day to meet former IBF Light Middleweight World Champion Robert ‘Bam Bam’ Hines with the idea of him co-training Marianne along with Buster himself.

After just a day of working together, Robert commented, “Marianne’s good, she’s tough, skilled and packs plenty of power, you can see she’s had good trainers, they taught her to box. Now I’ll teach her the art of boxing and she’ll be unstoppable.”

It is clear that Marianne feels that she has not only found a new home in the James Shuler Memorial Gym but also world-class coaches that can take her to new levels of fitness and heightened ring skills - as she says, “I never thought I would say this as I really loved being trained by Joe and Marvis Frazier and Val Colbert at Smokin’ Joe Frazier’s Gym, but them
closing down may have done me a favour.

"If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met Robert, whose coaching is truly perfect for me. Not just his training techniques and conditioning regime, but his total commitment to both me and my boxing career. Like myself, he’s a southpaw, so demonstrating techniques useful to me comes naturally to him.”

It looks like Marianne’s dream is right back on track as Robert has said she will be ready for her professional debut this summer as originally planned.

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