Cherneka Johnson, not so long ago, was watching Muhammad Ali’s grandson climb a mountain outside Las Vegas when she leapt from her car to join him.
Not that she was supposed to.
No, despite being Australia’s best female boxer not named Ebanie Bridges – and the reigning IBF super bantamweight champ – Johnson also owns the type of ongoing Achilles issue that makes running up mountain roads inadvisable.
But still, out of the passenger’s seat and onto that bitumen she jumped anyway.
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Just as last October, this 28-year-old Melburnian also fought on with blood covering her face, chest, arms, everything.
All up, a performance which also changed everything.
With Johnson, that afternoon, not only defending her IBF strap against fellow Aussie Susie Ramadan, but earning thousands of new admirers given the buckets of claret it took to reclaim said strap.
Oh yeah, the gutsy defence also just happened to take place on the same card as George Kambosos versus Devin Haney II … meaning a host of new eyeballs also witnessing her bravery.
“So after that, everything switched for me,” Johnson recounted this week for Fox Sports Australia. “That was when people really saw me as a fighter”.
Now eight months on, Johnson is back – this time defending gold in Sunday’s hyped world title showdown against undefeated Englishwoman Ellie Scotney.
Taking place inside Manchester Arena — and set to be shown live on Fox Sports — said bout is the culmination of what has already been months of hard work for Johnson in Las Vegas, where she has trained alongside some of the sport’s biggest names.
Together with fellow Aussies Taylah Robertson and Deanha Hobbs, the trio worked out with Terence Crawford, ran mountains with Mikaela Mayer, even felled trees with Muhammad Ali’s grandson – undefeated middleweight Nico Ali-Walsh.
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Organised by popular US boxing coach Kay Koroma, the group were also provided access to private gyms used by the likes of Shakur Stevenson, Caleb Plant, even Gervonta ‘Tank’ Davis.
But the story Johnson’s team remembers most is that day making an arduous climb up Mount Charlestown, just outside the world’s fight capital.
As Robertson recalls it, she was struggling.
Breathing hard as others, including Ali-Walsh, began to push off and away.
Which is when Johnson, against advice, and while seated in a car tailing the group, jumped out and joined in with her mate.
“Because sitting in that car, it just didn’t feel right,” the champ recounts now, only days out from the biggest fight of her career.
“Taylah was out there busting her arse to get up that hill.
“And given we’re a team, the least I could do was give her a push.”
Which is exactly the same spirit Johnson showed that night last October, when a clash of heads early in the second round opened a cut so nasty, the champ would later receive 16 stitches and, even now, still carries a visible scar.
Fighting on valiantly through eight more rounds however, the fighter dubbed ‘Sugar Neekz’ would eventually score a convincing decision win on which, she says now, “everything changed”.
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“But initially, I didn’t even know I was cut,” the fighter recalls.
“While I could feel something on my face in that second round, it wasn’t until I saw the look in Susie’s eyes that I knew something had happened.
“I actually remember she said to me ‘Oh, you’re bleeding …’
“But I just replied ‘and what?’
“We were in a fight, I couldn’t see the cut, couldn’t see the blood … so when she said I was bleeding I just said to her ‘and what?’.”
Soon enough however, Johnson got back to her corner.
“And that’s when I felt the blood all down my face, saw it all over my shirt,” she recalls. “And that’s when I thought to myself ‘Ok, this must be a bad one’.
“I couldn’t really see out of my eye either but I just thought the blood would stop sooner or later. And my corner did a great job …”
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“I did think ‘OK, better pick things up here or I could be in trouble’,” she continues.
“Especially because she (Ramadan) kept going at the cut. So I knew I needed to pick up my game.
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“That’s when I decided to stay long, not get the cut hit and score points.”
It will be a grit Johnson needs again Sunday against Scotney, who comes with all the hype of a fighter challenging in just her seventh professional appearance.
“But having had my camp in Las Vegas, it’s been great,” Johnson said.
“Back home, I always thought I trained hard.
“But heading to America, things are at another level and given where my career is at now, it’s exactly what I needed.
“Obviously I’m always confident going into my fights — if I don’t believe in myself, nobody will – but this time has been really good.
“This is my first international fight as a professional and I feel I deserve to be here.
“I’m confident and ready to go.”