Reina Tellez has never been one to wait her turn. She just walks straight into the fire.
Back in January, the 23-year-old from Vero Beach, Florida accepted a fight with seven-division champion Amanda Serrano on 15 days’ notice. No tune-up, no easing in, just a straight jump into elite company. She went the distance, lost on points, and walked out with something more valuable than a win: a reputation.
Serrano called her a “warrior”. The boxing world took note.
Now Tellez is back on a big stage, riding the momentum of that night into another showcase. She faces Jessica Barry on Saturday in Birmingham, on the undercard of Mikaela Mayer vs Chantelle Cameron at MVPW-06, a landmark event marking MVP’s fifth anniversary.
For Tellez, this is no accident. It’s the direct consequence of that decision in January.
“The Serrano fight got me on a platform like I am today. For that, I'm extremely grateful,” she told Sky Sports.
She doesn’t dress it up. She knows exactly what that gamble did for her career. “I feel like without that fight, I wouldn't be able to see the things that I need in my life and in my career to keep being successful and keep being Reina.”
That night with Serrano hardened her, sharpened her, changed her.
Tellez enters Birmingham with a 13-1-1 record, including five knockouts, and the conviction that she is no longer the same fighter who stood across from Serrano earlier this year. “I'm not the same fighter that I was when I fought Amanda Serrano, and even my fights before that, I feel like I've really evolved,” she said. The upcoming bout with Barry is more than another date on the schedule. “This fight means so much to me, my family and my team. So I'm grateful for it.”
The respect she has for Serrano runs deep. The Puerto Rican star recently secured the 50th win of her professional career with a majority decision over Lucrecia Manzur, retaining her WBA and WBO featherweight titles in a fight streamed live on TikTok that drew 3.4 million views across the night. That kind of reach, that kind of legacy, is not lost on Tellez.
“You look at everything she has done, she's done a lot for the sport,” Tellez said. “She's a world champion for a reason. So you have to always give respect to her too.”
That respect doesn’t come from distance. It comes from sharing a ring with her and surviving the experience.
The road to this point started in far quieter surroundings. As a child in Vero Beach, Tellez watched boxing on television and saw her uncle train at the local gym. Curiosity quickly turned into ambition. She told her family she wanted to box. They hesitated. She was the only girl in the family.
“I told them I wanted to box, and at first they didn't want to because I'm the only girl in the family,” she recalled. “And then they took their chance on it, they took me to the gym and since then I've just been boxing.”
That first step led to a bigger one. To chase a serious career, she uprooted and moved to Texas, a state with a deep fighting tradition and a thriving boxing scene. Today she trains out of San Antonio, one of two Texas fighters on this weekend’s card alongside Miranda Reyes.
“Texas is big, boxing is huge in Texas, that's one of the main reasons I actually moved to Texas,” she said. The move has paid off. She now finds herself on a major bill, part of MVP’s anniversary celebrations, with a chance to show how far she has come since that whirlwind Serrano call-up.
Tellez was originally due to fight Juliana Vanesa Basualdo on the Stephanie Han vs Holly Holm 2 card in May, only for the bout to fall through. The setback didn’t stall her momentum; if anything, it sharpened her focus. The Serrano fight still sits there as the pivot point.
“It taught me a lot as a boxer and as a person,” she said. “I feel like I've really evolved. So to see how much better I've got over the past couple of months and the changes that I've made that I can showcase in the ring, it means a lot to me.”
She talks about opportunity with the same intensity she brings to a fight. She knows there are others from her world trying to break through, and she carries them with her in a way. “It's just crazy to see people that I've known since even as a kid be here. And I'm happy for everybody who comes from where I come from to be able to get the opportunity. So best of luck to Miranda and to me.”
A Texas takeover in Birmingham?
“For sure,” she answers, without blinking.
She believes in herself. She believes in her heart. She has said it openly: this is what she has wanted since she was a child. The difference now is that the rest of the sport is starting to believe it too.
