Louise Orton: ‘Sometimes, you have to risk it all for a dream, only you can see. This is my dream.’

Louise Orton: ‘Sometimes, you have to risk it all for a dream, only you can see. This is my dream.’

‘Every day, you have two choices. I will survive this day, or I will thrive this day. I chose to thrive to show the character of a champion.’

Louise Orton turned professional in 2019. It took three years for the professional debut. Fight number two will finally materialise on November 11th at the iconic York Hall. In many ways, it has been a long time coming.

Since 2019, there have been many fights that have fallen through. Too many. A lesser person, a lesser fighter would have quit and found another path. Since 2019, there have also been many demons to conquer. Too many. A lesser person, a lesser fighter would have succumbed to those demons.

Fighters, by the nature of their craft, fight. Orton has had to fight harder than most. But Orton now starts another type of fight. The one that she was born to do.

November 11th feels like a new beginning and one that Orton probably felt would never come.

Before finally making her maiden professional ring walk last year, Orton had eight scheduled fights that fell by the wayside. It wasn’t just the financial cost of the training costs for fights that came to nothing. It was the emotional cost that was the biggest hit for the incredibly ambitious super-featherweight prospect.

“Because it keeps happening I have lost faith. In my head, I don’t think I can go through with it again because if it gets cancelled again that is another mental process I have to go through. I need to build myself up again, get physically and mentally strong again,” Orton told me in 2021 when she was still waking to make her professional debut.

But if Orton thought that successful debut would be the catalyst for the turmoil to end, she would have been disappointed. A potential new sponsor contacted her. It was supposed to be everything she needed. In truth, it was anything but. The dream new sponsor turned out to be a registered sex offender who was intent on grooming her. Old wounds reopened, a downward spiral that sent Orton into an abyss. It took time, and she needed time away from boxing, but the born fighter fought back. Bit by bit, Orton rebuilt herself until the inevitable comeback began. Louise Orton the fighter returned. But more importantly, Louise Orton the person returned also.

‘I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become. The challenges were sent to test how badly I want it…this is where the story unfolds.’

The former amateur stand-out will hope, pray even, that November 11th and the hook-up with TM14 Promotions, is that new beginning that leads to a period of ring activity and all that promise, potential, and hope of 2019 finally comes to fruition. As I have said before, if anyone deserves a change of luck, it’s Louise Orton.

‘Sometimes,  you have to risk it all for a dream, only you can see. This is my dream.’