Roha Hudson: “I want to take it seriously. And no matter what, this is my career now. Regardless of who I come up against, I believe I can go far.”

Roha Hudson: “I want to take it seriously. And no matter what, this is my career now. Regardless of who I come up against, I believe I can go far.”

The boom in women’s boxing is showing no signs of slowing down. What Jane Couch started all those years ago in that era of prejudice and ignorance was taken to another level by Katie Taylor when she turned professional in 2016, and all that followed her have continued the upward trajectory.

The lack of depth, a still lingering problem, is ever-improving. The next 12 months will undoubtedly continue that progress. The unfortunate, regrettable and avoidable chaos that surrounds the amateur scene will greatly benefit and advance the professional ranks in the coming months. Make no mistake, the level of talent that will turn over will boost the professional roster to unprecedented levels. That lack of depth will soon be a thing of the past.

Roha Hudson is one such fighter. The ninth amateur fight this week will be the final ring walk in the unpaid code for a boxer who has won every one of those eight fights. Eight fights that in truth, should have been a lot more.

“Friday will be my 9th fight and I haven’t lost yet. I won the National Development title in 2022. I didn’t start fighting until I was 18. Covid took away two years and my illnesses took away another two years in total.”

After virtually a year off from the sport through illness, the return on Friday hopefully, signals the end of a frustrating and worrying time for Roha. Over Zoom, she relayed the past three years when the career was put on hold as Roha nursed her body back to full health:

“This will be my first fight back in nearly a year because I have been out with numerous illnesses. I got Covid really bad a few years ago and I was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, I caught pneumonia as well. And when I came out, I knew there was something still wrong with me. I was shaking really bad, and I couldn’t feel my legs. When I was in the hospital I was in a wheelchair and had to use crutches, and when I came out I had to use a Zimmer frame. I was diagnosed with neurological dysfunction, essential tremors and a few other things. I still had existing issues with my lungs from my pneumonia and I had to keep going back to the hospital. I also had a hoarse voice from the Covid, my voice is now really deep when it used to be quite high. They told me I wouldn’t be walking for 9-12 months, but I was back walking within two months.

“I had a year out to recover. Then I went and boxed in the Nationals, won them and then when I was in the gym out of nowhere I started being sick and started shaking. That night I was back in the hospital and two days later I couldn’t feel my legs again. They were doing all the tests on me, pricking my legs, the hammer tests etc. They said I had lost 70% of my feeling in my legs and all they could put it down to was neurological dysfunction. So I was on a lot of different medications so I have had about 9 months off.”

The time away has been used for reflection and more. Not wanting to waste any more time in her career, especially with the politically motivated uncertainty that is threatening to drown the amateur code, Roha has set her sights on the world of professional boxing. Before the health problems of recent times, Roha could very easily have been in the England amateur set-up, before the realisation that she wanted a little more out of her sport of choice:

“Before all that happened one of the England coaches came to my last fight and asked me if I wanted to train with all the girls. But I have now turned 25 and after getting over all these illnesses I thought I might as well turn professional. I just don’t want to lose another year really.”

There have been multiple offers on the table for the signature of Roha on a professional contract, with further meetings planned once the final amateur fight this weekend is assigned to the history books. Despite no firm decision being made on who will guide her entry into the professional ranks, Roha is already looking to make that maiden walk as early as June:

“I’d like to have two to three months of solid training from now. So, probably around June time. We have discussed fighting at different weights but I think we are looking at fighting at super-middleweight.”

The early years were akin to living out of a suitcase. Regular moves for family reasons made it difficult to structure her life, but it was one such move that laid the foundation for Roha to enter the boxing world she told me:

“I’m originally from Coventry but we moved to Wolverhampton. So I am from big cities and there were so many different sports teams and I was very much a team sports person. I used to play football three times a week. I used to do gymnastics, netball, and cricket. Eevery day was a different sport. And then I started doing cross country and I won a big race and had trials with Wolverhampton.

“I lived in twenty-six houses before I was sixteen. I have moved so many times. And then at the start of secondary school, I got the news that I was moving to Shrewsbury in Shropshire. It was actually Bishop’s Castle which is around eleven miles outside of Shrewsbury, so it is in the middle of nowhere. So I went from a school of 2,000 people to one with only around 500. So as you can imagine there were no sporting teams at all, it was a really tiny school. So I was forced to find a different sport. But as soon as I walked into a boxing gym when I was twelve, I just took to it straight away and I have been training ever since.”

As it does so often, once boxing enters a life, it usually stays there. There is some unexplained addictive nature to the Noble Art. For Roha, it was love at first sight:

“Outside of the ring I am very independent. I am very much a social butterfly, but outside of the ring I enjoy my own space. I’ll sit down on my own and play the guitar for a few hours. I am very much my own person. Walking into a boxing gym, it is such a solo sport. It is your release, you have to concentrate so much. It is your time. And I think I got addicted to that. And as soon as you get that first win, and you see the smile on your coach, you just want to keep going.

Roha works as a Personal Trainer, and it is a job that works in many ways for her passion that will very soon turn into something much more. Most of her work is online, allowing Roha valuable time to work as much as possible on her boxing. The importance of that will be visible in the coming years as her professional career advances. Roha also has to combine everything around her four-year-old son. Boxing means plenty, but family is everything.

Finding sparring is problematic, the lack of female sparring is a constant problem for the aspiring pro. The last female Roha sparred was 3 years ago, and even then, she came without any sort of fight on her resume. It was light sparring. At best. With an unbeaten record and a National title to her name, finding willing opponents is just as difficult as finding a sparring partner. Excuses are made, and possible opponents go elsewhere. Roha cites this as another reason she is saying goodbye to her amateur career. The red flags have been there for quite some time that her talents would be better served fighting for pay.

Roha tells me she is ready to fight right now once the formalities of her last amateur are done and dusted. You sense all those frustrations of the past few years are ready to be unleashed on her sport.

“I want to take it seriously. And no matter what, this is my career now. Regardless of who I come up against, I believe I can go far.”

The ambitions are high for the Coventry-born fighter. Roha may have fallen into the sport by accident, but boxing has gained another talented addition as a result.