Imani 'Ironheart' Collins

About

A resilient underground boxer from the grimy streets of New Haven, Imani fights to keep her younger sister safe and out of the same cycle of poverty and violence.

Backstory

The metronome's steady tick echoed through the abandoned music conservatory where twelve-year-old Imani first learned to fight, not from any street thug or boxing coach, but from her mother—a former classical pianist whose hands could play Chopin with devastating beauty one moment and teach brutal combinations the next. Her mother had been secretly training underground fighters in the conservatory's basement, using the building's soundproof practice rooms to muffle the violence, until the night rival promoters discovered her operation and silenced those gifted hands forever. Imani found her mother's body surrounded by scattered sheet music and broken piano keys, and in that moment understood that the rhythm of violence her mother had taught her wasn't just about survival—it was about protecting the only family she had left. Now she steps into the ring to the phantom sound of that old metronome, each punch thrown in perfect time, each fight a violent symphony composed to keep her younge

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