Natasha Jonas is built different. Before the latest biggest fight of her career against Lauren Price this Friday in London, the WBC / IBF welterweight champion took a break from her training camp in Manchester to travel to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia to work with her teammate Mohammed Alakel.

Not in a world title fight, but a six-rounder which Alakel won via decision over Engel Gomez on February 22. World champions don’t do that, especially not with their own fight rapidly creeping up.

Ask her why, and she declares that she didn’t miss any training, that her daughter Mela was staying with her father for the week, and that her longtime coach Joe Gallagher was also going to be in Riyadh, so why not?

“I weighed up the pros and cons, and it won,” she says matter-of-factly, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It’s not, but Jonas has never done the conventional thing. If you recall, before the world titles, before the wins over Mikaela Mayer, Ivana Habazin, Marie Eve Dicaire, Chris Namus and Patricia Berghult, the Liverpool native was seen as someone who would never make it to this point.

Sure, she made it to the 2012 Olympics, the first British woman to do so, and was celebrated as such. But, after a brief absence from the sport, Jonas was seen as too old to succeed when she returned to turn pro at 33. And after losing her seventh fight to Viviane Obenauf in August of 2018, the detractors had a field day, their doubts seemingly confirmed.

But here she is. Not only an Olympian and a two-division champion, but someone with a resume that could land her in the hall of fame once she hangs up the gloves. That has to be beyond satisfying.

“I always knew it,” she said. “I was always trying to make people believe it instead of me believing it and showing them. I was trying to prove the right people right and the wrong people wrong. But now, I just prove myself right. I know how good I am. I've had my bad days when things didn't go my way, but it didn't stop me from trying to prove myself right. But I'm glad that now I've come to terms with not having to prove it to everyone. I don't have to prove anything to anyone anymore. So I'm satisfied about that, that I just proved myself right. I think that's a healthier place to be, because when you're trying to do it for everybody else, it's coming from a negative perspective. You're always fighting. You've always got this fight in you for no reason.”

At 40, Jonas has nothing left to prove, to herself or anyone. But she’s still here because, as a fighter, there are still challenges, still big fights, and she doesn’t want them to slip away before she walks off into the sunset. The unbeaten Price, The Ring and WBA champion at 147 pounds, is one of those challenges. But Jonas isn’t blinking before facing someone many believe is the greatest athlete ever produced by Wales.

“I think, as a pro, she’s never been tested,” said Jonas of Price, a 2020 Olympic gold medalist for Great Britain. “She's never been chin checked. Like she says, she's never lost a round. So how strong you are mentally has never been tested either, not just physically, but mentally. You haven't been tested. Her biggest test to date was a very, very poor Jessica McCaskill. You've done all these things as an amateur, but the pros is different. So yeah, I just think there's lots of questions that are unanswered.”

Jonas expects to be the one to answer those questions. Then there will be another one, but this one is for “Miss GB.”

What’s next?

“I know what's possible after March 7th, but I don't look to it or dwell on it just because I've been there before and kind of looked past something, then the result didn't happen, and you think, damn, now all the doors are shut again,” Jonas said. “So you've just got to concentrate on what's in front of you and give that your full attention. And she (Price) is someone who is going to need my full attention. I think when you are at the very top of the elite of the sport in our division - myself, (Mikaela) Mayer, Sandy (Ryan) and Lauren, it’s always going to be close. So you've got to concentrate and be a hundred percent on this.”

It's why we’re still talking about Natasha Jonas, years after many said she was making a mistake turning pro at 33. She made it. And she’s done it her way, staying classy the entire way, not an easy feat in this business, but one she pulled off by staying true to herself.

“It is tough sometimes,” she admits. “The short part of the answer is that my family and friends would never let me get above myself. It's them that keeps me grounded, and I stay within the community and do a lot of work in schools. Now the long version, I remember being in school and people used to come and give us talks and I was like, ‘Yeah, but that's them. They're not here.’ And they always seemed like they were just the people on TV or the people that have come from TV to give us a talk. And they went back to where they came from, but it wasn't here. And I am really big on being very active within my community and being present in it and being seen in it and talking to kids in it and going to all schools because I want kids to be motivated to know that there is bigger and better in whatever you want to do, as long as you believe in yourself and work hard. So I think that helps as well because I'm not just that person on TV and I don't want to be. At the core, I am just me.”