For Shurretta Metcalf, her time – finally, at long last – is now

It is less than 24 hours before Shurretta Metcalf is set to duck through the ring ropes at the Theater at Madison Square Garden in the biggest fight of her career to date, and she is puttering around her New York City hotel room in hopes of making more room in her stomach after her post-weigh-in meal of shrimp, chicken and rice.

“I’m full,” she said. “I’m trying to walk it off a bit so I can eat some more.”

Still hungry.

On Wednesday, Metcalf, 13-4-1 (2 KOs), will challenge for Miyo Yoshida’s IBF bantamweight belt on the line. This is Metcalf’s first title fight but her second go-round with Yoshida. At 39, Metcalf isn’t likely to get many more bites at the apple.    

“You know what’s so crazy?” Metcalf asks rhetorically. “I did not know that I was 116.4 pounds, so I really got lower than what I was trying to. I didn’t overwork or anything like that – overtrain. It’s just that I’m naturally a smaller girl. But I’ve been gaining weight just because I’m getting older.”

Time is ticking.

Nothing has come easy for Metcalf – not that you’ll hear her tell it. She’s too busy moving forward, looking for the next thing, working, hustling, waiting for an opportunity to draw close enough for her to latch on and wrangle it into submission.

Metcalf is from Oak Cliff, Texas – a town that has gradually been subsumed by Dallas but for which Metcalf draws a clear distinction. She didn’t grow up with much. (“We wasn’t no richies,” she said.) And yet, it was enough: “We might not get everything we wanted, but we got everything we need.”

Angela Metcalf gets full credit from her daughter for providing for Shurretta and her younger sister and brother – and not just the material stuff. Shurretta’s drive, grit and will? That comes from mom, too.

“Oh, you know, my mom is pretty much like any other mom from the hood,” Shurretta said. “‘Hey, you better fight back. If your sister fights, you

better fight.’ You gotta have each other’s backs. We don’t take that scared stuff.”

It’s that foundation that gave Metcalf the nerve to start fighting in the first place. She had been in some scraps as a kid, of course, but she never gave boxing any thought as a vocation – not until one of those opportunities came drifting by and she was asked by an acquaintance about participating in a local fight night.

“They said, ‘Hey, you wanna fight? You could win some money,’” Metcalf said. “And I was like, ‘Sure, yeah.’ We do all this fighting, but we don’t never get paid. It was a way to support my kids.”

And just like that, Metcalf was throwing hands in underground fights at clubs and oddball venues, learning to box on the fly and providing for her sons, Danarius and Daquan, now 19 and 17. 

It also helped set her up to start her other businesses – including a boutique and salon (The Headquarters Deluxe Studios), a mobile bartending outfit and a personal training gig. And it brought her to this moment: hours from her night at the Garden, still hungry for more, with time short but a world of opportunity waiting for her to grab on with both hands.

The kicker is that the IBF belt should already be hers, Metcalf says. 

After outpointing Japan’s Yoshida last November in a straightforward unanimous decision, Metcalf could only watch as Yoshida, now 17-4 (0 KOs), was given a title shot – coming off the loss – against Ebanie Bridges a month later. 

For a year, Yoshida has worn the belt without yet making a defense or showing much interest in a rematch with Metcalf. For a year, Metcalf has called for the fight, made noise, pushed and prodded, waiting patiently – but perturbedly – for that belt to come within arm’s reach. 

Given just a five-week training camp and, in her estimation, little promotion behind the fight, Metcalf says she’s ready to take what’s hers.

“She would say a little something,” Metcalf said of Yoshida, “but it was pretty much like, ‘Hey, the IBF hasn’t ordered the fight, so I don’t have to worry about you.’ Or, ‘I don’t plan on fighting Metcalf unless she gets the belt.’ And I’m like, ‘But you got my belt.’”

What Metcalf already has is all of Oak Cliff firmly behind her. She says she has done her own grassroots publicity tour – radio, social media and the like – and stirred up local interest back home, where she is on the cusp of becoming Dallas’ first women’s boxing champ. “My city is so lit for me right now,” she said. “I’m getting so much love. It’s crazy.”

As fight night approached, Metcalf was joined in New York by Danarius and Daquan, who arrived with Angela. Shurretta’s mother had never been to New York – never even been on a plane, to the best of Shurretta’s knowledge. 

It’s a big deal – “She definitely don’t take off for work,” Shurretta said of her mother – so she’s relishing the moment. Now with her family in tow, her rematch with Yoshida set and her belt so close that she can almost reach out to snatch it, Metcalf is keenly aware that her time is now.

“I definitely do, yes, even though I don’t feel my age and don’t look it,” she said. “But you just never know at this age – look, anything can happen. But I definitely feel like I have urgency for it. I want the big fights. I want the money fights. That’s what I want.”

Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, has contributed to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be followed on X and LinkedIn, and emailed at [email protected].