Dyer: 'If I can make it out, you can too' ahead of UFC strawweight bout in Las Vegas

Shanelle Dyer will face Elise Reed in a strawweight bout at the UFC in Las Vegas on Saturday and said, "If I can make it out, you can too." In March the Londoner announced herself on the world stage when she knocked out Ravena Oliveira in the second round on her UFC debut.

Dyer, 25, grew up on a west London housing estate and said her parents pushed her towards sport because they feared what the alternative might be. "Some of it was difficult, especially when you go to school and you find out people in your class got stabbed - some people actually died from my neighbourhood," Dyer told BBC Sport. "That's heartbreaking because we grew up in the same place, and that could have been me if I went down the wrong path." She added: "It just happened my parents and family and people around me put me on a great path. It just motivated me, I didn't want to be in that situation, I wanted to be in a better situation."

In 2020 Dyer lost her friend and MMA mentor Jahreau Shepherd when he was stabbed to death by his brother at his 30th birthday party; she said she had been at the party but left an hour before the incident. Dyer has adopted the nickname "The Nightmare" from Shepherd to keep his memory alive and said of their shared ambitions: "We had the same dream. I remember talking about how we were going to be UFC fighters, UFC champions, walk out to big crowds, that was our dream." She added, "He didn't get to live out his dream but I can so I'm gonna take him with me," and spoke of his presence in her routine: "Jay is always with me. In my corner, every morning if I don't want to go training I can hear 'get up, you get to live your life - do it'. He's always in the back of my mind."

Dyer began in Muay Thai before moving into mixed martial arts and has won seven of her eight professional fights, recording five knockouts. Her March performance earned her a performance of the night bonus of $100,000 (£73,000); on that sum she said, "That bonus is a lot for me. The area I grew up in, you don't see that money in our lifetime, never mind in one night." She added: "I'm taking my family to Paris after this fight, it's the first family trip I'm coming to, just to start showing them the bigger picture."

Dyer has spoken about using her pathway to the UFC as an alternative example for young people from troubled neighbourhoods and urged others to find a place where they belong. "I have a lot of people on my estate who have found out who I am now. Walking down my estate people are like 'I can't believe you're in the UFC, you actually made it out'," she said. "If I can make it out, and I came from the same place as you, you can do exactly the same thing. Just surround yourself with the right people. Find great role models and find a place where you belong. If you love something put your heart into it. What's the worst thing that could happen?"

Official figures cited in the piece reported that killings involving a knife or sharp instrument fell by 21% last year across police forces in England and Wales. More than a quarter (28%) of knife-related offences were recorded by the Metropolitan Police in Greater London, which saw a 17% fall in recorded knife crime compared with the previous year.

Dyer will meet American Elise Reed in the strawweight bout on Saturday in Las Vegas, where announcer Bruce Buffer will read out her nickname "The Nightmare" before the fight.