The route may have been complicated at times, but Natasha Jonas always had a clear vision of where she was heading.
Jonas became the first British female boxer to compete in the Olympic Games. She turned professional after taking a break from the sport to give birth to her daughter, and then kept her faith in herself by winning the world title at the third attempt. Jonas, from Liverpool, has always had a goal or task to focus on.
The IBF welterweight world champion knows the end of her career is coming, but she is unsure when it will end.
Jonas (15-2-1, 9 KO) signed a long-term promotional deal with Boxxer in November 2021, and with Sky Sports heavily supporting women’s boxing, it looked like Jonas would finally be able to put his years of tough work to work professionally and financially.
The following year she moved up from lightweight to junior middleweight and stormed through the 154-pound division, winning three world titles and the British Boxing Board of Control Fight of the Year award, and became one of the faces of Sky Sports’ boxing coverage.
Since then, Jonas has been more of a pundit than a fighter. She made her solo appearance in 2023 — defeating Kandi Wyatt to win the vacant IBF title — and has fought just once this year, eking out a stunning split decision victory over Mikaela Mayer in January.
When she left the ring in Liverpool that night, Jonas did so with a career-defining victory under her belt and the praise of promoters and Sky Sports ringing in her ears. She couldn’t have been in a better position to choose the ideal exit route from the sport, but it’s been a never-ending series of distractions since.
“When you’re a world champion, you always have a target on your back, but six or seven months out of the ring is too long. It was the same before,” Jonas told BoxingScene.
“I had such a great and successful 2022 that I thought, ‘Okay, this is it. I’m going to get going.’ It’s just a bust in the broadest sense of the word. I do better when I’m lively. That large downtime and waiting is not good for any athlete — not just me.
“It’s not the players. It’s the business side of it that’s the reason for the delay. If we could have the rematch with Mikaela Mayer in May, we would have. We were hoping for June at the latest. It didn’t happen. She agrees, I agree – you’d think that would be the hardest part – but we both agreed to our terms right away.
“Boxxer said they couldn’t do it, so we’re going somewhere else. We go to Top Rank and they say, ‘Yeah, we can do it, but it’ll have to be on the Queensberry show.’ We take it to Queensberry and they say, ‘No.’
“I think there were some intricate details about the rematch clauses and who gets options. Honestly, I presented it as something straightforward, but it was a bit more complicated than that.”
Jonas is well aware of her position in the sport. She was one of the pioneers who paved the way for women’s boxing to its current lofty position – or at least the lofty position it was last year – and has established herself as one of the most recognizable and popular competitors in the sport.
Unification fights with fighters like WBO welterweight titleholder Sandy Ryan and WBA and Ring magazine champion Lauren Price may seem natural and typically British, but Jonas believes the fighter has the right to end her career on the biggest stage possible, rather than just take part in a handover ceremony.
There seems to be an unspoken truce between the fighters. Jonas is content to let the younger generation fight among themselves, while they seem to think highly enough of her to let her live out the rest of her days fighting the fighters she helped build the sport with – rather than calling her names and trying to promote their own reputations by using her name.
“I think there’s just a little bit of respect,” Jonas said. “If you’re good enough, you let boxing do all the work and eventually you can’t be avoided. At the same time, you have to take advantage of opportunities when they come, so if you get that large chance, you have to take advantage of it. I think that’s more the case here.
“There are eras for everyone. The next generation is not my era. It’s like if someone went to the Olympics and turned around and shouted Lauren Price, ‘You’re not her era. Do your thing first, and if you’re good enough, you’ll get to the top and have a chance to fight her. There’s a kind of generational boxing that makes sense. That’s probably why we never got [Carl] Froch vs. [Joe] Calzaghe. He wasn’t his generation of fighters, if that makes sense.”
Jonas would like to get the green lightweight to begin the final chase.
Undisputed welterweight champion Katie Taylor defeated Jonas in the quarterfinals of the 2012 Olympics, then defeated her again when the two fighters met in a rematch in 2021, winning the undisputed lightweight title.
Taylor, who is 38 herself, will quietly be planning her exit from the sport. The multiple world heavyweight champion is tied to a delayed but lucrative rematch with Amanda Serrano in November and will have to decide what to do.
If Taylor were to beat Serrano a second time, a long-awaited rematch with Jonas and a chance to become world welterweight champion would suddenly become a very attractive proposition. As would a high-profile trilogy fight with her fierce rival Chantelle Cameron. As would a long-heralded “event” fight in Croke Park. As would a well-deserved retirement.
Jonas doesn’t want to quietly disappear, but she faces a frustrating wait to find out if Taylor will even consider her.
“There’s also a chance he doesn’t win,” Jonas said. “Will they have a third fight then? Probably. It’s worth it for both of them. I don’t remember how much the fee was, but for any fighter, let alone a woman, it was a lot of money. While I don’t think it’s worth it for Katie to wait, I understand why she does. She’s not going to make that kind of money anywhere else. As frustrating as it is, it’s not about me. She has to do what’s best for her. I understand that.”
“Just one win. I’d be like, ‘I’ve done this. I can hang up now.’ To be fair, even if she had won, I’d be like, ‘You know what? I’ve tried so many times, and she’s beaten me so many times – she’s just better than me.’ That would just be drawing a line in the sand.”
If she can’t draw that line herself, Jonas will let Father Time do it for her.
“I really didn’t want to pack for next year, but it doesn’t look like it’s possible anyway, so that’s ruined. But definitely before my birthday. Definitely before I’m 41.”
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