British Featherweight Marianne Marston Added To Rooney’s Gym Staff

Women’s boxing has justifiably been receiving a lot of attention recently, firstly with the announcement that it will be included in the London Olympics in 2012 and then the first live broadcast of an all female professional bout, between Big Brother star Angel ‘The Artist’ McKenzie and Lana Cooper, on British network television.

In some ways it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Boxing gyms up and down the country are suddenly beginning to take female participation in the sport seriously.

What may surprise some though is that there is a gym in London that not only has actively supported women’s boxing but has also been training female fighters for a number of years.

The gym in question, Rooney’s Boxing Gym, formerly Gleason’s London, has had many of the best known female boxers, including five time World Champion, the late, great Gisselle Salandy, Laura Saperstein, Angel ‘The Artist’ McKenzie, Marianne ‘Golden Girl’ Marston etc, train at their world class facility close to the famous London landmark, Tower Bridge.

Now gym owner, top Irish boxing trainer and manager, John Rooney Jnr. has taken his commitment to women’s fitness and boxing a step further by adding a female personal trainer to his already exceptional coaching team, which is headed up by Great Britain’s most successful coach ever, Terry Edwards MBE.

In keeping with the high standards he has set for his flagship gym, John Rooney Jnr. has recruited none other than the aforementioned Marianne Marston.

Going by the ring name ‘Golden Girl’, Marianne, a prodigy of the legendary Heavyweight Champion of the World Smokin’ Joe Frazier and Cruiserweight Champion of the World Steve ‘USS’ Cunningham, has spent extended periods of time in America being coached by some of the biggest names in the sport including Smokin’ Joe Frazier, who is credited with discovering this major talent, and his son Marvis at their landmark North Philadelphia gym until it closed early in 2008.

She has also had the privilege of being personally coached by ‘Trainer of the Year’ Freddie Roach at his Wild Card gym in LA and Francisco Mendez at his NYC gym when she spent time in those cities.

Marianne, who is trained in London by Terry Edwards MBE, and John Rooney Jnr., is part of Cruiserweight World Champion Steve ‘USS’ Cunningham’s professional boxing team and, when in America, is trained by Steve himself and famed female coach Shar’ron Baker at the James Shuler Memorial Gym in West Philadelphia.

The training techniques of the world class coaches, and those of her London based conditioning coach Choleton Senior, Marianne has trained under have clearly rubbed off on her.

Her transition to coaching has been highly successful and has led to her devising various boxing based fitness programmes, to suit people of all levels of proficiency. In addition to personal one-2-one training Marianne has recently started offering boxing based fitness classes for women.

The classes Marianne has developed, loosely termed as Boxercise but not to be confused with the basic ‘glove wearing’ aerobic classes of that name offered by general fitness centres, feature a combination of core conditioning exercises and genuine boxing techniques.

Following one of these classes Marianne briefly spoke of her new role as a trainer. “I feel honoured that a great coach like John (Rooney) feels that I have what it takes to be one of his trainers. I mean, he’s trained no less than 8 World Champions and has attracted top boxing coaches, such as Terry Edwards, Darren Hamilton, Ben Day, Karol Ozimkowski and Ben Doughty, for his gym. To be considered good enough to be part of such a great coaching team is a true honour.

I am so used to being the pupil that it felt a little strange at first, being the teacher, but now I’m in the swing of things I’m really enjoying every minute. I remember what it was like when I first started out and can relate to what my clients are going through. I must admit I do get a kick out of seeing someone I’m working with develop, it makes me really pleased for them, and proud at the same time.

I also feel that it is helping me with my own boxing training. This may sound strange but I find that I am now more analytical on the ring-craft and boxing technique due to this. I honestly believe that this is helping me to be a more technically minded fighter.”

On the subject of Marianne’s boxing career, if all goes according to plan British boxing fans should see her in action later this year on the undercard of Hammerin’ Hank Lundy’s UNBC Light Welterweight title defence at the Trans-Atlantic Challenge event in London and American fans will get the chance to see her early in 2010 when she will be on the undercard of Brian ‘Bionic Bull’ Cohen’s WBC Continental Americas title defence in Philadelphia.

Besides those times Marianne is in training camp or competing she will be available at Rooney’s Boxing Gym for personal one-2-one training (male or female) and her women only boxing fitness classes are on Tuesday (7.30pm), Wednesday (5.30pm), Thursday (7.30pm) and Saturday (2.00pm).

Rooney’s Boxing Gym, Arch 895/896 Holyrood Street, London SE1 2EL. Tel: 020 7403 6113 see www.rooneysgym.com for further details.