Shannon O’Connell: “Three weeks after my first spar I had my first fight.”

Shannon O’Connell: “Three weeks after my first spar I had my first fight.”

By Chris Akers

In Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a computer called Deep Thought answers the question ‘What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?’ with the number 42. With Shannon O’Connell, it is another number that, while not explaining the meaning of the universe, symbolises meaning in her life and everything – 78.

“It was his racing number,” O’Connell explains to me via Zoom.  “Even in speedway, no one has ever taken that number since his death.”

The ‘his’ is her father, who died in a speedway race when he was 25 years old.

“He died five days before his 26th birthday and five days after my second birthday. I like to explain him as my mom’s knight in shining armour.”

After he passed, her mom started to become a heroin addict. Growing up in that environment, as one can imagine, was not the most pleasant experience.

“It wasn’t nice,” says O’Connell. “My mom was always nodding off to sleep. She’s burned herself with cigarettes. More so than seeing my mom off her face, it was more going through how she was going to get it. Stealing from family. She even stole from my brothers. And the lying and the sneakiness.

“The people coming in and out of our house, that was probably the worst part of it, more so than seeing my mom on drugs. She took the drugs to cover up her hurt, to make her life go away.”

Solace from this life was not found in high school. It would be fair to say that O’Connell was a tearaway teen during that time

“I wasn’t your ideal student. I had two older brothers who, I’m not playing the blame game, but they weren’t the ideal students either. I feel they just picked on me (laughs) and I just picked back any time I could!” she laughs.

“School wasn’t for me but I got through. Put it this way. Anything my kids have done at school, I did ten times worse! I’m not going to be that parent who says that they were perfect.”

Got through school she did and after her teenage years she discovered the sport that would have a significant impact on her life.

“I was going out at that point from the age of 16,17 to 20, partying all the time. I used to play netball and I had a bad back. The physio told me to have a season off and I decided to do more of the wrong things, so my grandparents took me down to the local boxing gym.”

The owner of the gym was Terry Fox, who used to race speedway with her dad.

“He was really happy to have me there. Three weeks after my first spar I had my first fight.”

An amateur for nine years, O’Connell had 50 amateur fights. For her second amateur fight, she had to get hypnotised because of her nerves.

“I did, though I probably got more nervous! I’m the type of person I’m in my own head. I went and got hypnotised to try and control my nerves and it made me more nervous.”

The level she reached as an amateur was high, competing in a couple of world championships including the 2010 tournament in Barbados. Turning pro, she started with Terry Fox before moving to Queensland.

Winning 23 of her 30 professional fights, O’Connell has now positioned herself as the mandatory challenger to Ebanie Bridges. It’s a fight that she hopes will be made.

“I really hope she doesn’t give up the belt, “she says.  “She wants to unify, so if she can’t get through me, she has no hope of unifying. So I wouldn’t think she’s going to give up the belt. I do believe negotiations have started. The fight as far as I’m concerned is happening in September, before the date that the IBF has called. Where I’m not sure.

“Hopefully it’s in Australia. Yes, she is based in the UK, but most people would be pretty happy defending their belt in front of their home crowd. I don’t see what the problem should be. I think there will be more eyes on it in Australia. There’s a big crowd in the UK, I’m not going to take that away from them, but I don’t know if that whole crowd is there to see her. I believe it could be made the main event here in Australia, which is massive for women’s boxing, especially in Australia.”

An all-Australian fight between two of the best bantamweights in the world would continue the recent success of Australian boxing in both the professional and amateur sides of the sport. This interview took place during the recent Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, where Australia won five medals. Boxers of the caliber of George Kambosos Jr and Jai Opetaia have achieved great success over the last 12 months. Why does O’Connell think this is the case?

“I have no idea. I guess we have always been there. But we have the right people behind us now, the promoters getting us good fights, as it’s always been we get thrown into the deep end and we get given these opportunities to go overseas and we’re really not ready for it, whereas now we have some really good fighters that are ready for those big steps up. We’re just growing as a country and boxing is getting bigger here.”

Assuming she wins a title in her next fight, O’Connell knows how she would like her career to develop over the next year.

“I would love to unify. There’s a lot of talk about the best of Australia, but I truly believe I am the best female Australia had. Obviously, there are people who have done more as an amateur but at this point I’ve done a lot as an amateur, a lot as a pro, taking risks, and done everything the hard way. The only thing no Australian female has done yet is unify. For me that’s undisputed.

“I look at the other champions all the time. I’d love to fight Jamie Mitchell, [Yulihan] Luna. We were offered a fight with Dina Thorslund last year but it was really bad money and three weeks’ notice. If that fight could be made properly, then all of them.”

Photo Credit: Darren Burns