Iyana Verduzco makes it abundantly clear that she bleeds Dodger blue (her words, not mine). So it was odd to hear that “Right Hook Roxy” spent nearly two weeks of her training camp for a Saturday bout with Celene Roman far from her home in Los Angeles to get work in Manchester, Connecticut.

But when Irish superstar Katie Taylor called, she answered.

“She told me I was the best work she has ever had, and she wished she knew me two years ago when she first fought Amanda [Serrano],” said Verduzco, who helped get Taylor ready for her third fight with the Puerto Rican on July 11, while getting valuable work herself in an unlikely place. But as soon as Verduzco arrived in the no frills Manchester Ring of Champions Society gym, it was like she had been there for years.

“I went in there and I said it smells like home,” she laughs. “It smells like an old school gym. It's beautiful in there. And Katie and her team, [coach] Ross [Enamait], are such humble people, and she's the most humble fighter I've ever met, other than Leo Santa Cruz. Simple girl, humble girl, no cameras, just her and her coach. She's just everything a fighter should be.”

Back in Southern California as she waits for Saturday night, she's still buzzing about her sparring sessions with the undisputed junior welterweight champion, who gave her some encouragement to take with her into this fight and the future.

“She said when she was my age, she wasn't doing what I was doing,” said Verduzco. “And she said I'm tough and I have what it takes to be a world champion, and it just gave me a lot of motivation because hearing it from her, it really meant something special to me.”

Needless to say, Verduzco is expecting to bring those lessons learned in Connecticut to Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, California, when she meets Mexico’s Roman. It’s Verduzco’s fifth pro fight, but if it feels like she’s been around longer, she has. Most of that time in the game was in the amateur ranks, where she compiled a 101-6 record, but the COVID-19 pandemic slowed everything down, and after some time pondering her future she chose boxing and turned pro in 2023.

If not boxing, where might she be today?

“I wanted to be an FBI agent, a serial killer profiler,” Verduzco said. “I did some college courses when I was in high school in social justice and criminology. So I would do something that has to do with serial killers and then maybe stunt acting. I would do any type of an action movie. And MMA.”

The niece of the legendary Benny “The Jet” Urquidez and his sister, the equally legendary Lilly Rodriguez, Verduzco doesn’t just have boxing in her blood, but kicks and a pretty mean elbow in her arsenal if she does make an eventual transition to mixed martial arts. But, for now, it’s boxing, and a bright future in it. But she is unbeaten and 23 years old, which means there has to be some level of impatience there.

Or is there?

“It's all up to my team, and me, of course, but [promoter] Tom [Loeffler], the way he wants to move me, we already have a plan,” she said. “I'm jumping into eight rounds already, so I'm trying to work my way towards a smaller title, maybe change weights, but I’m not sure about that. I still have to talk to my team after this fight. But we are just taking it fight by fight. I'm barely in my fifth one, and I'm already ranked up there on Boxrec, so it's really just up to 360 [Promotions] and the way Tom wants to move me.”

She’s got all the important parts down to have a successful career. Most importantly, she can fight. But there’s also her lengthy amateur background, a good team behind her, and her marketability. In other words, Verduzco gets it. Not every 23-year-old boxer does. Many 33-year-old boxers haven’t figured that part out yet. But then again, “Right Hook Roxy” has been around the game since she was a kid. So don’t let the 4-0 record fool you.

“I've been in this for 19 years,” she said. “My mother [and coach Gloria “Coach G” Alvarado], they had world champions. They had ex-world champions, male fighters. Since the age of eight, I've seen how the business works. I've seen the way promoters and managers are, so I am pretty seasoned when it comes to this.”