It’s probably worth your while keeping an eye on "Miss Charm," in your role as a boxing fan.

Curtis Woodhouse caused British sportswriters to scratch their heads in 2006 when, aged 26, he gave up professional football (or “soccer”) for professional boxing. Woodhouse has been a moderate success, winning the English 140-pound title and recently making a spirited attempt at the Commonwealth lightweight title, unfortunately finding himself on the receiving end of a stiff beating from a fighter made in the womb by comparison, Derry Matthews, who turned professional at nineteen.

The source of that head-scratching was the relative work-to-rewards ration that Woodhouse exchanged when he gave up football for boxing. Footballers are paid extraordinarily well, top earners pocketing as much as $500,000 dollars a week, but even those at Woodhouse’s level earn in the low thousands. Domestic level boxing cannot compete. Furthermore, a footballer will tend to have his afternoons off after a morning’s light training. Boxers head to the gym post-run having consumed a relatively Spartan breakfast.

Woodhouse proves that, once you get the bug, it doesn’t really matter who you are, you have to box.

Supermodels, too, I am told, earn well and get most afternoons off. This hasn’t stopped Japanese “Miss Charm” Tomomi Takano, who placed highly in 2009’s “Asian SuperModel” contest, turning professional. Yes. This 5’10 Japanese Miss Earth Pageant competitor is a now a professional boxer. Her weight division? You won’t be surprised to read she’s super-fly.

A female super-flyweight standing 5’10 towers over her opposition and this has certainly helped Takano clamber to 3-0 in 2013, including two wins by way of first round stoppage. A little wayward with her punching, the Japanese shows commendable aggression that hints at her background in kickboxing, punching around the corner at her opponent in the most recent contest when the referee stopped the contest a little prematurely. Slender and sweet-faced, Takano likes to fight. She, too, has the bug. It’s a good start.

A recent move to Japan’s premier Kyoei Gym shows that, in her home country at least, this twenty-six-year-old, like Curtis Woodhouse, is being taken seriously, either as a potential talent or a potential earner.

It’s probably worth your while keeping an eye on her, in your role as a boxing fan. I will be, in my role as a writer for Boxing.com.

And for no other reason…