Hanna Hansen: “How fine can I really be when I have had to retire from my career.”

Hanna Hansen: “How fine can I really be when I have had to retire from my career.”

“It’s all or nothing. If I want something I will do everything I can to get it.“ In the summer of 2021, Hanna Hansen uttered those words to me. Hansen had travelled the world as a model and a DJ before finding boxing in her native Germany. Back then she was a novice pro with only one fight on her resume, but she was already dreaming of winning world titles. And quickly. Towards the end of last year, she was well on her way. Unbeaten in six fights, and on the verge of European and world title fights, Hansen was within touching distance of an unlikely dream. But out of nowhere, disaster struck.

As we reconnected over Zoom, her career was now over. A detached retina had forced her to retire. Hansen had tried to fight the inevitable. But a heartbreaking call was finally and begrudgingly made. A clumsy opening question asking how she was, was met with the only response it deserved:

“How fine can I really be when I have had to retire from my career.” A dejected fighter, with the unfortunate ex now permanently attached to that fighter moniker. It was fight week just before Christmas, a former world champion would be her opponent with big fights in the offering for 2023. There were signs something was wrong, they were ignored, hoping and praying it was something else, not realising the severity of the problems she was now facing.

“I was preparing for a defence of my IBO Inter-Continental super-welterweight in December,” Hansen told me. “It was fight week, but I was having problems with my eye for two weeks, but I didn’t recognise I had a problem. I just put it down to stress because I was training two or three times a day. I couldn’t see that well in sparring, which was quite funny because I was quite good in sparring without seeing very clearly. I am a southpaw so my right eye is the most important one and I was having problems with my depth perception. I just didn’t recognise I might have a real big problem.”

Hansen’s best friend told her to go to the hospital to get the eye checked out. It wasn’t what a fighter in the middle of fight week wanted to hear. She fought the advice in her mind before finally accepting she had to go. Very quickly a nightmare scenario was upon her:

“I went to the Dr and his face turned white. I was told to stop everything I was doing and don’t look down and just soft walk with no movement. I just thought what is going on just two hours ago I was having really good pad work with my trainer. I said I am boxing on Saturday and she said I wasn’t. I was told I had to go to the emergency surgery that day.”

It was beyond serious. A different fight began. The fight for her sight. Hansen was told she was within minutes of losing her sight in her right eye. One surgery morphed into four. And still, Hansen wanted to fight on, until she was told, “One more hit and you will go blind.”

The dreams of European title fights and an IBO world title fight against Femke Hermans were now dead in the water. They were her fights, everything Hansen told me she wanted back in 2021. That dream taken away from her so cruelly. It was so close, those fights were locked in. And now Hansen was locked out of a sport that had engulfed her since that fighting journey began in kickboxing which included National and world titles, before making the switch to boxing. It was a short life. For Hansen, far too short. Dreams unfulfilled, the hardest part not knowing how far she could have gone. The injury to her eye the only opponent to defeat her. But the memories are still good if a little bittersweet:

“I loved every second of it. I loved the training, even the sprints, which I hated. I loved every second because I absolutely love boxing. I will stay in boxing for sure, I don’t know how just yet, but I will. I can talk, maybe a speaker, but I will stay true to boxing because it’s my passion. It is so hard to give it up now because the last three years were so amazing.”

The pain is still raw, but it will ease. Hansen plans to stay in the sport which grabbed her so violently several years ago. The life of Hanna Hansen has only known success, the life in modelling and in the DJ world had reached their natural conclusion, in boxing, she was denied that. That is the part that will hurt the most, certainly more than any punch she ever took. But her life story to this point tells us that Hansen will bounce back and find something else in her life to match her lofty ambitions. No eye injury will ever take that away from her. The final words of our previous interview were nobody should write her off. They apply again.