"La Dama del Ring", Anays Cecilia Gutiérrez Carrillo of Colombia, and her rival for the inaugural AMB super bantamweight title, Marcela “La Tigresa” Acuña of Argentina, came face to face for the first time at the weigh-in for tonight's fight in Caseros;  but whilst the Argentinian was setting eyes on a stranger — she hadn't even seen video of the youngster fighting — for the Colombian, it was all déjà; déjà; déjà vu: "I know her," she told Eduardo Bejuk of Olé. "More than that: I've been dreaming about fighting her for ages. I've seen her lots of times on television and remember saying once: 'One day, I'm going to fight Acuña'. Now it's about to happen."

Both women, according to Juan E. Brignone of Boxeo.org, were radiating confidence yesterday. "I haven't fought for nine months," said Acuña, "but I've never left the gym, so I'm in ideal condition. I want this third world championship and there's no doubt in my mind that I'm going to get it." "Excuse me," cut in the visitor, "but the belt's destination is Colombia!" She knows Acuña's game inside out and it doesn't worry her. "I'm going to beat her," she told Eduardo Bejuk. "I'm sure of it".

Gutiérrez actually weighed in 60 grams over the limit at 55.4 kg, but she was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and rather than making her strip down to her bra and panties, Universum style, the AMB supervisor Luis Graglia (exercising 'sound judgement' in the view of the wire service Telam) decreed that her weight be given as 55.34 kg —dead on the super bantamweight limit. Acuña weighed in at 55.15 kg. The other officials for tonight's fight — which is being screened live by TyC from 23:55 onwards with radio commentary (in Spanish) at www.fueradecombate.com.ar and  www.fm955.com.ar — are referee Aníbal Andrade (Uruguay) and judges Hugo de León (Uruguay), Gustavo Estrella (Argentina) and Héctor Primerano (Argentina).

In view of the fact that Acuña is fighting in her home town — she was born in Formosa but lives and trains in Caseros (in the north west of the Buenos Aires conurbation) — giving her the added advantage of two Argentinian judges is preposterous, and since Gutiérrez has only stopped two opponents in ten attempts, the odds do seem stacked against her. If, on the other hand, you take the view that if both women are still on their feet and swinging when the final bell sounds, the fight's a draw, and trying to pretend otherwise (almost always) results in controversy and (as often as not) injustice, then Acuña's 12-6-1-0-1-3-1 (KO-UD-SD-D-LSD-LUD-LKO) record indicates — before even the quality of opponents has been taken into account — that she's a far better fighter, and it's there that Gutiérrez Carrillo's real problem lies.

But the Colombian's young (21 to Acuna's 29) and has, hopefully, been working on her punching power in the seventeen months since her last outing (when she defeated Marys Herrera on points). She doesn't see herself as a defensive fighter. In fact, asked to describe her main virtue, she cited non-stop aggression. "Of course, I know how to box as well," she conceded, "but when the moment comes to finish an opponent off, I finish her off."

In her first fight as an amateur, she did just that. Up until then, her trainer, the 'immortal' Jorge García Beltrán, had made her fight boys. Boxing, in his view, was far too brutal a sport for girls, and this was his way of showing her; but since there were no other girls, it could hardly have been otherwise. What was different here is that the boys didn't hold back. She was often in tears but never cried 'uncle'. "It was hard," she remembers, "but it was my decision to get involved in this sport and I had to accept the consequences." Boot camp for Gutiérrez lasted most of her teens. It wasn't until she was nineteen that she got her first chance to compete on an even playing field. They fought a club from a different barrio that put up a woman for her to fight. Anays gave her a hiding. "I was happy," she remembers, "because it was the first time I'd ever fought another woman, and I knocked her out. That was when I knew I was going to be a boxer."

Along the way, she's had several trainers (including 'El Ñatico' Guzmán) learning something new from each one. In her corner tonight will be Aníbal 'Zuzuky' Miranda along with Manuel Pérez Tafur, who was quick yesterday to point out that — contrary to what Luis Bello has been telling people — the only fight she has ever lost (and that only on points) was in fact an exhibition, since her opponent, Mónica '"Terrible" Acosta, the woman defeated by "Chapita" Gutiérrez for the UBC bantamweight championship a few months back, weighed in over the limit. Her record going into tonight's fight is therefore 9-0-1 (2 KOs).