Boxxer preparing to relaunch women’s boxing in 2025

Boxxer are planning to match Natasha Jonas and Lauren Price in an all-female bill in London in March to lead a wider attempt to prioritise rebuilding women’s boxing in the UK. 

The 40-year-old Jonas retained her IBF welterweight title and dethroned Croatia’s Ivana Habazin as the WBC champion with victory in Liverpool on Saturday – when Price, 30, retained her WBA title while becoming the first to defeat Bexcy Mateus of Colombia.

A fight for all three titles was already on course before they entered the ring that night, and Ben Shalom’s Boxxer, the organisation that oversaw Claressa Shields-Savannah Marshall at the top of a popular all-female bill in 2022, hopes to feature them on the same card as the WBC lightweight champion Caroline Dubois and potentially Francesca Hennessy. 

The Saudi Arabian influence on boxing has contributed to the domestic fight scene in the UK, and women’s boxing globally, becoming neglected, but Shalom told BoxingScene: “We’re looking at something very special. Women’s boxing, if you look at 2022, 2023, was the shining star of British boxing. Everyone was talking about, ‘Why can’t the men be more like the women?’. Men’s boxing’s had a renaissance with Riyadh Season, but women’s boxing, other than [Katie] Taylor-[Amanda] Serrano this year, hasn’t had the same. 

“So we’re looking at a big women’s night in early March, in London, at a very prestigious venue that usually doesn’t host boxing, and it’s going to be something very special. In an ideal world, the winners [Jonas and Price] will be on the card. 

“Sky Sports are massively, massively passionate about women’s sport, and that’s where we’re going to see the most success [in 2025]. There’s a huge responsibility at Boxxer to make sure women’s boxing gets back to where it was and where we helped to get it to. The plans that I can see going into next year, around Lauren, around Caroline, around Fran – even talk of Savannah Marshall coming back for her rematch – and Natasha Jonas. There’s going to be some big nights.

“We want women’s boxing to be back on the front pages; on the back pages; and we think our women’s night, with Lauren and Caroline and even Fran coming through – there’s some seriously good talent there that can be the next Savannah Marshall, Katie Taylor and Natasha Jonas that we’ve had so much success from.”

The talented Dubois makes the first defence of her title against Canada’s Jessica Camara on January 11, and asked she will have enough time to prepare for a date in March, Shalom replied: “We want the Terri Harper fight that we think makes sense – a unification. That’s the fight that we want; we’ve already put big offers in for that fight, and it’s the biggest money that Terri Harper could hope to earn for any fight, so fingers crossed that gets done.”