Alejandra Oliveras dispensed almost entirely with garments in favour of body-paint (“it’s lighter”) at the weigh-in for tonight’s WBA-WBC unification fight—the first ever between Argentinian nationals—in Luna Park, Buenos Aires. She needn’t have bothered :  she came in comfortably below the super bantamweight limit at 54.35 kilograms to Marcela Acuña´s  54.85.

As Enrique Rodriguez, who interviewed the pair individually for La Prensa, discovered, Alejandra Oliveras has sloughed off now the diffidence that had rendered her almost unrecognizable these last few weeks: “I’m the best,” she trumpeted. “I’m superior to her in every respect… [This was La Locomotora of old] … and I’m not just talking about power, strength and speed. I mean mentally as well.” (And there was plenty more besides…)

Marcela Acuña, when all this was relayed to her, reacted with mock relief: “At last! So she finally said something!” Oliveras’s claim that her own belt, awarded by the WBC, was of superior status to Acuña´s WBA one, called forth a particularly withering response. “Let´s see. Who´s she fought again? Jackie Nava and…. er… Jackie Nava…. and… Well that’s about it!”

She’ll have both belts or neither tomorrow in any case.