Kate McLaren: “I really want to be a world champion, and that takes sacrifice, hard work, and dedication, and that is what I am willing to do. I am all in.”

Kate McLaren: “I really want to be a world champion, and that takes sacrifice, hard work, and dedication, and that is what I am willing to do. I am all in.”

A lot has changed since I last spoke to Kate McLaren late last year. Last December, McLaren was still in the unbeaten ranks. Six fights. No defeats. But Enja Ryan took away her unblemished resume courtesy of a disputed split decision over eight hard rounds.

McLaren had moved to Australia over a decade ago. But as we connected again over Zoom, we found ourselves in the same time zone. In pursuit of her dream, McLaren has moved back to England.

“I was going to go to America but I have found this amazing gym and an incredible coach so I am going to stay in the UK for a while because I think he will keep me quite busy,” McLaren told me of why she moved her entire life back to her native country. “I am now training with Will Jones from Elite Boxing, and we are training at the Edge Gym. Will is an incredible coach. Will is really well-connected, and he has a full team behind him. I have really landed on my feet. I am so excited about what is to come.”

The female side of boxing is thriving, but there plenty of work to do to fill the gap of many years of neglect. The depth is still an issue, especially in certain parts of the world. Regular sparring and fights are often hard to come by, which was part of the reason why McLaren left her adopted home of fourteen years.

“I felt in Australia that the boxing circle was only so big,” McLaren told FightPost. “I lost my last fight, and I felt like it was a bit of unfair judging. I feel like I got robbed. Everyone is saying that I got robbed in that fight. I called her out for a rematch, but I kept getting denied. I lost my number one spot, which really hurt. It was quite emotional for me because I wanted to stay at the top of the ladder. But then, everyone else I wanted to fight, those fights just would not align. But then I got offered to fight a girl called Tayla Harris. That offer came literally just a few weeks before my move back to the UK. At the time, I was packing my entire apartment, and I just thought this wasn’t the right time for that fight. I would have to go up a division as well, and I wanted to stay in my own weight division.

“They were pretty keen for me to fight her because they offered me a purse, which I declined with everything that was going on. They then came back and doubled the original offer. I then was thinking should I just do it, but it just wasn’t sitting right with me with what I was dealing with at the time. So I declined the fight again, and then they said, “How about we throw a title in?” I do think it was the right thing to do not to take the fight. My ranking is so important to me, and I don’t want to go half-hearted into a training camp. So I decided to pack everything up and come back to the UK. I’ve done fourteen years in Australia and I have only got a small window and I want to give my boxing career everything. So I decided to come home.”

Fourteen years of memories were nevertheless hard to leave behind.

“It’s been very emotional leaving Australia,” McLaren says of her decision to move back to England. “There have been a lot of tears over the last few weeks. There has been a lot of, am I really doing the right thing. Moving back with my parents at the age of thirty-three isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Most people my age are settling down and getting married. But what I really want is to be a world champion, and that takes sacrifice, hard work, and dedication, and that is what I am willing to do. I am all in.”

The welterweight hopeful is, as she says, all in, in search of glory and more in her sport of choice. The former model is no stranger to tough decisions. In many ways, she has come full circle. McLaren has given herself the best possible chance of success in boxing. There were thoughts of moving to America before she settled on a return home. A painful, difficult decision that she hopes will serve her well. Ebanie Bridges and Skye Nicolson have made similar moves in recent years. Both realised the UK was where they needed to be for the sake of their careers. Bridges and Nicolson both won world titles as a result. Kate McLaren will hope she emulates their success.