Natasha Spence is accustomed to serving as the wedge that lifts the careers of other fighters. But on Friday in Toppenish, Washington, the night was all about her.
Facing Maricela Cornejo in a six-round middleweight main event at the Legends Casino Hotel – essentially Cornejo’s backyard – Spence took a physical unanimous decision, pulling off an incredible career pivot at age 40.
Official scores weren't immediately announced after the fight.
Spence, from Cambridge, Ontario, Canada, came into the fight having lost five in a row and having gone 0-6-1 in her past seven starts. Her recent competition was no collection of taxi drivers – Spence’s opponents in her winless stretch had a combined 67-7-3 record when she faced them – making her resilience, especially at an age when most fighters have become ex-fighters, an achievement in and of itself.
“I feel amazing. It’s been a long time coming,” Spence, now 9-8-2 (6 KOs), said in the ring after the fight. “I feel great. I worked my ass for this – pardon my French, sorry. But I worked my ass off for this, so I hope you guys enjoyed the fight.”
In particular, the final two rounds made for a proper denouement to an entertaining headliner. After a bit of squirrely clinching and a referee’s warning to Spence for using her head early in the fifth, she immediately stung Cornejo with a sharp jab. Cornejo answered back with a right-hand bomb upstairs – her best punch of the fight – that briefly rocked Spence. Answering back with a swatting left, Spence took another right hand to the temple, and then another.
Cornejo, now 19-8 (7 KOs), originally from Prosser, Washington, and now training out of Los Angeles, seemed at that moment that she might be grabbing the fight by the reins. She drilled more hard right hands in the sixth and final round, and never backed away from exchanges. But Spence landed several quality left hands of her own, adding some strong body work, which may have been enough to edge the round. The action wasn’t always clean, but it was fierce and relentless, and in the aftermath Spence had fully earned the respect of Cornejo’s crowd:
“I heard some boos in here, and you are all entitled to your own opinion,” she said, directly addressing the fans from the ring. “I've gotten a couple of fights taken from me that I knew I won – everyone knew I won. That's the sport. If you guys want us to run it back, I'm always down to run it back. I'll give her a chance to prove that if you guys think that she won it. We can do it again – I'm cool with that.”
Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, was a contributor 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 found at LinkedIn and followed on X and Bluesky.
