LI’s Alicia Napoleon is ready for the spotlight vs. Femke Hermans in Barclays Center card

Sure, Alicia Napoleon always saw herself living in the spotlight.

Just not this spotlight.

“I originally wanted to be a famous singer. That was my dream,” she said. “And here I am, a famous puncher.”

Napoloeon, of Lindenhurst, is thriving in her professional boxing career and hopes to raise her profile to another level Saturday at Barclays Center, where she’ll face Femke Hermans for the vacant WBA world super middleweight title.

“This is a dream of many to come. I have been working very hard for this moment. The Barclays Center, this huge arena, the crowd that’s going to be there, the eyes that are going to be there on me that night,” Napoleon said. “It’s a new chapter for me. It’s the start of a new beginning for my boxing career. I’m so just, I can’t even find words for how excited I am for this moment. I can’t wait to seize that moment. “

The 32-year-old has interests ranging from fashion and acting to painting and cooking, but since joining a boxing gym at 18, the sport has served as a liberating outlet for the competitive drive she’s had since childhood.

“That whole powerful female drive started at like 5 years old. Playing baseball, wrestling on the boys wrestling team. I just always heard as a young kid that I couldn’t do things cause I was a girl and that there were certain sports for girls and certain sports for boys and I didn’t want to hear it,” Napoleon said. “So in my senior year of high school I finally found a boxing gym, because they’re not really known in Long Island, they’re like hidden treasures and I found one and I fell in love with the sport and here I am today now a world champion.”

Napoleon turned professional in 2014 after a successful nine-year amateur career that included multiple Golden Gloves titles. She loved her time as an amateur, but felt she was ready for the next step.

“There was just something about the amateurs where I said, ‘I don’t quite feel like I fit, and I want more,’” Napoleon said. “The pros allowed me to be my own individual athlete and star as far as my costumes and as far as my promotions and as far as really building my platform around me and to really express myself.”

Napoleon’s success in the ring hasn’t stopped as a professional. She’s 8-1 with five knockouts, her only loss coming against then-unbeaten Tori Nelson in a world title fight in 2016. The wins are nice, but Napoleon is especially proud of the platform she has built for herself, giving her the ability to spread a message of motivation and empowerment to women in boxing and beyond.

“Once I turned pro, I was really able to connect to other women, connect to other athletes, connect to other people,” she said. “It’s this movement that I’m just trying to express and gravitate towards everyone that wants to find themselves, be liberated, be empowered. I just really want to motivate people, and I feel like the pros allowed me to do that. I’m fighting for world titles, I’m fighting for bigger things, and the world sees that.”

Napoleon is fighting for titles, but she also is fighting for women’s rights in the boxing world. She said she wants to “break doors down” in terms of equal pay, turning down several promotional contracts early in her pro career before recently signing with Lou DiBella when she finally was offered a deal that was in her favor.

“This is the entertainment business. Alicia is good entertainment,” DiBella said. “She’s attractive, she’s personable, she has a charismatic aura. She can punch like a mule and she likes to fight. She’s got the whole package.”

Napoleon might have the whole package for DiBella, but there’s still a battle to be fought outside the ring. Napoleon said she still works a full-time job on top of training and promoting despite fighting for a world title.

“Women cannot make a living off of boxing and that’s because we have to get those people in the sport of boxing behind the scenes, in the networks, the promoters, HBO, Showtime, whoever it is that makes the decision of putting women on and paying women the certain amount that they pay them, we need to change their mentality because women are just as much of professional athletes as men and we deserve equal opportunity, we deserve equal spotlight,” Napoleon said. “We are sacrificing just as much as the men, if not more. And it’s not fair that they’re not giving us that. They’re starting to a little bit in boxing, just a little bit, but there needs to be more.

“It just needs to change, enough’s enough.”

Napoleon said MMA has set the example of how to better promote women in boxing, but for now, female boxers have to be their own advocate.

“I’m putting my all into this, this is my livelihood, this is my future, this is my legacy. I’m not doing this for fun, I’m doing this because I’m built to do this,” she said. “So I really believe in just standing your ground and believing what you’re worth and fighting for that in every sense of life, that’s what I want to show the people, they too can have that mentality and fight for what they want.”

What Napoleon wants now is the title up for grabs Saturday night. As excited as she is to make the walk to the ring in front of family and friends, she’s most excited for the moment her hand is raised and the belt is placed around her waist after her bout with Hermans.

“I think I’m going to knock her out. I feel confident, I feel really good, I feel really strong. I had a tough training camp, the toughest I’ve had in a long time,” Napoleon said. “I’m fully prepared. I have a great team, I love my team, so I feel fully confident that I’m going to knock her out and my hand will definitely be raised, WBA champ right here.”