Last week, NABF bantamweight champion ('Nurse by Day') Zulina Muñoz [9-0-0 (8 KOs)] from San Vicente Chicoloapan described Fredee González, or rather her own failure to knock González out when the two met in Cuautitlán Izcalli on the 26th May, as 'a thorn in my flesh'.

It's mutual, it appears.

González, a twenty-year-old from Pedro Escobedo, Querétaro, whose record is now given as 5-1-1, has not found that one defeat at the hands of a woman a year younger than herself easy to swallow. Timid in her demeanour and softly spoken, an edge enters her voice when she speaks of the NABF champion: 'I hadn't expected the opportunity for revenge to present itself so soon,' she says. [The return, co-headlining the televised 'Acuérdate de Acapulco' bill, is tonight at the Centro de Convenciones in Acapulco]. 'Last time I wasn't properly prepared, but the fight was still close and went to a decision. This time, I can win. I know I can. She deserves respect; but I can knock her out. I'm stronger than she is.'

That isn't how Muñoz sees it. Only the other day, 'La Loba' (The She-Wolf), as she is known, was telling reporters that the only reason González finished their last fight on her feet — rather than her back like most of her (Muñoz's) opponents — was that she (Muñoz) was ill. 'This time,' she says. 'I aim to do the job properly.'

A collision of egos. Of personalities (and ambitions) that are mutually incompatible. The stuff, one imagines, of which great fights are made.

Trained by Ricardo Barrón and based in Los Angeles, González dreams of a world title shot and is counting on the support of her parents, her manager, and her 'own two fists', as she puts it, to deliver.

But first she has to get past Muñoz.

Last time, after promising she would take home the title 'or die in the attempt', she only survived — after taking something of a hammering in the first four rounds — by crowding, and clinging on to, the champion to prevent her landing ´the big one´. ('Always keep a hold on nurse, for fear of catching something worse…').

 This time, she says, she has a better plan of attack. 'It won't be easy,' she concedes, 'because now we know each other: each of us knows now where the other can be hurt.'

What she knows now that Muñoz doesn't is the bitterness of defeat; but it's knowledge she's anxious to share. This time, she plans to give Nursey a taste of her own medicine. This time, she believes, she can send the She-Wolf home with her tail between her legs.