Louise Orton: “Everything feels perfect now and it’s like everything that happened has led me to the place where I am meant to be.”

Louise Orton: “Everything feels perfect now and it’s like everything that happened has led me to the place where I am meant to be.”

By Matt Elliott  

Boxing is a brutal and unforgiving sport, and any fighter who chooses to pursue a career in it knows full well the risks that are involved every time they step inside the ring. One of the key issues though, and one that many fighters have little to no control over, is that the sport’s punishing nature often continues long after the final bell has rung. It is quite often the challenges outside of the ring that place the biggest burden on a fighter, and which ultimately results in some making the decision to walk away from the sport altogether.

One boxer who has experienced such feelings is Louise Orton. FightPost has spoken with Orton several times over the years, covering the excitement of turning professional in 2019, to her debut in March 2022 and more recently discussing the harrowing moment that she discovered a potential sponsor, someone who had promised to help fund her assault on the super-featherweight division, was a registered sex offender who had a far more sinister motive.

As she prepares to make her long-awaited return to the ring this Saturday against Bojana Libiszewska, I caught up with Orton via Zoom and found her in a really good place. By her own admission though, the past year has been the toughest period in her life so far.

“I walked away from the sport completely last year. I say now that I had a year out, but the reality is I walked away. I had reached my absolute limit, not just because of what happened with the sponsor, but because of things in my personal life and boxing was starting to affect me; my mental health was suffering. Instead of it being something that made me strong and that I’ve always used as a coping mechanism, something that made me happy, it started to have the opposite effect, it started to make me unstable and cause unhappiness and I thought this isn’t right anymore, so I walked away and that was probably when I hit the lowest point. I was out drinking a lot and completely lost respect for myself in a way, and respect for my health. I’ve always been a healthy person and looked after myself, and boxing has always been my focus, but within the last year I kind of lost all of that and I didn’t care about anything anymore.”

Away from boxing, Orton is a qualified mental health nurse, and that involved a long spell working in a prison. With that background, you might mistakenly assume that she has all the tools to deal with challenging situations and would be able to overcome any setback, but Orton points out that quite often this type of career, where you help others, leads to a person neglecting their own mental health.

“When your job involves supporting other people with their challenges, a lot of nurses, especially those working with mental health, end up neglecting themselves because you are so focused on everyone else, and trying to be there for them, that you forget about you. Ultimately, you can’t pour from an empty cup and to be able to be that strong person for others, and do the job properly, I need to be well in myself. It’s a bit like on a plane, when they tell you to fix your oxygen mask before assisting others, well that’s true in my job. You can’t help other people’s mental health if you can’t look after your own.”

The timing of the challenges that Orton has faced in her short career as a professional has unfortunately coincided with a surge in the popularity of women’s boxing, with some unbelievable fights taking place over the last couple of years. I questioned how difficult it’s been to watch on from the sidelines.

“Honestly, I can’t even watch it on TV anymore. I am not even joking. The only people I’ve watched on TV are my friends. I struggle because I know I am as good as them, and seeing where they are and here I am, not even able to get a fight, it’s so frustrating and I feel like, at the minute, I don’t need any negative energy, I need to remain positive and keep my strength. I am happy for my friends and that will always be the case, but once I’ve seen them box I will turn the TV off because it’s just like rubbing salt into the wounds, to be honest, and I just find it so frustrating. So yes, I don’t watch it at the minute. I am hoping that will change because I used to love it, but at the minute it’s still quite raw.” 

Thankfully, despite her initial intention to walk away from boxing completely, this turned into an extended break. Orton points to a conversation with close friend and undisputed world champion, Chantelle Cameron, as the trigger to getting her back on track.

“It was a conversation with Chantelle that made me come back. We had a chat and she said don’t give up, you’re too good to give up, it would be a waste, and I thought, you know what, she’s right. I did start to miss it towards the end, and when I started to put the weight on, I felt really unhealthy and not very good about myself, and that’s when I started to get the hunger back. I think if I hadn’t taken a break, and tried to continue, it would have gone beyond the point of me being able to come back. I took time out at the right stage and found my way back naturally, so it was the right thing to do and it’s been the best thing that could’ve happened, because now I feel better than I’ve ever felt before, like mentally, and physically and in every aspect.” 

As well as regaining the hunger to compete, a change of role in her career outside of boxing, has also proved a catalyst in giving Orton more freedom to ensure better preparation for future fights, as she explains.

“In my previous job working full-time in a prison, I was starting work at 8 am, finishing at 4 pm and then commuting to London to start training at 6 pm and not getting home until around 10 pm. So, I would do my strength or cardio before I went to work, meaning from the moment I got up until I went back to bed it was non-stop. Now I am working from home, so the commute has gone. I get up and walk my dogs for an hour each morning, do my strength and cardio and then at around 11:30 am, I start travelling to the gym and train over lunch. It means I work later to make up for that time, but when I switch off, I am already at home. I’ve also got more structure around my training, which works better for me as I’m quite an organised person and I need to know what I’m doing and when. It also allows my meal planning to be a lot better, so it feels like everything has fallen into place. Everything feels perfect now and it’s like everything that happened has led me to the place where I am meant to be. I am in a really good place at the minute.” 

It’s great to hear Orton speaking so positively about the sport again, and in the build-up to Saturday’s fight, she has had a really positive camp, which has involved sparring with the likes of Skye Nicolson, Raven Chapman, Dee Allen, Johanna Wonyou and of course Chantelle Cameron. It wouldn’t be a Louise Orton fight camp though, if she hadn’t experienced some setbacks, and she started to get the feeling of Déjà vu when original opponent Bec Connolly was forced to withdraw a couple of weeks ago.

“The last two weeks have not been without their dramas. Bec pulled out and my manager said we couldn’t find anyone to step in. So, me and my coach were looking on BoxRec and sending ideas of possible opponents through to him. It was a case of no, or she’s injured, she’s suspended, or they want £6k which is just ridiculous. In the end, I said let’s go heavier, so my opponent is two weight classes above me. She is coming across from Poland so will end up costing me more money, because you’ve then got flights and accommodation as well. With the weight though, I can’t risk stepping away from super featherweight, because if I do move up and fight at a higher weight, then a title chance comes up at super-feather, I can’t go for it unless I’ve boxed a couple of times at that weight. So that’s not an option for me, so I’ve just given away the weight. I’ve accepted that risk and it’s one I am prepared to take.”

The talk of finances and funding an opponent’s costs led us to a wider discussion on that subject. One thing that is key for any boxer is finances, especially in the early years of a career. If you don’t have a promotional juggernaut behind you, then you need to be able to sell tickets and secure sponsorship. So often, as boxing fans, we only see the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas and more recently, the ostentatious displays in Saudi Arabia. What we often forget, is that for the majority of professional fighters, sometimes simply breaking even from a fight is a challenge, and after seeing so many fights fall down at the last minute, Orton admits this has hurt her ability to sell tickets and that is something which could have an impact on how active she is moving forward.  

“How often I fight will depend on tickets and stuff like that. I’ve had so many cancellations in the past, that it’s not that easy now to get people to come and watch me. I went through stages of cancellations being announced on the day of the fight, or the day before, and that frustrates people, because they are giving up their weekends, and possibly incurring costs, and I understand that. So now a lot of people are waiting until the last minute before committing. I would fight every month if I could, but it just depends on finances. When you first start out you have to fund your opponent, fund your costs, and then pay for trainers, nutritionists, food bills etc. so it’s not a cheap sport. I need to start getting 50-50 fights as soon as possible, as at that point I don’t pay for my opponent.”  

From a sponsorship perspective, given what happened to Orton last year, it was only natural that the whole experience would overshadow her ability to seek out new sponsors and to be able to believe in any promises being made. I asked how she was able to overcome that, knowing that securing financial support is crucial in helping her to achieve her dreams.

“With what happened with that guy, it came at a point when I was already quite low, due to the cancelled fights and he was everything I needed at that time, and he played on my vulnerability and being the saviour I needed. Recently people have been saying you need to get sponsors onboard, but being brutally honest I was scared to do it because I had a problem with trusting people. I’ve had the same in boxing in the past, where people say they are going to do something and they never deliver, so you are constantly being let down. You get to the point where you think, I don’t believe anything that anyone says unless I see it. Eventually, I reached out to a company called Urban Penguin, a guy called Andrew, and we connected immediately, and it was like it was fate. It’s changed my perspective on things because it’s proved not everyone is a bad person, or has an ulterior motive, so linking in with him has changed my mindset in that regard. It was quite emotional to be honest because it’s exactly what I needed at that time, and then Chantelle called and said she wanted to sponsor me as well, as she knew what I’d been through and wanted to help out. Both of those things came within about a week of each other, and they built me up so much and gave me back everything I had lost before. It restored my confidence and that’s what you need to succeed, to have other people believe in you makes it all so much easier.” 

We finished our discussion by talking about the future, and Orton’s plans for the months ahead. Saturday is her only focus at this point, but the aim is to be active and hopefully be out again in February and then April. Whilst admitting that getting onto the big shows and working herself into contention for a title fight is the ultimate aim, Orton acknowledges it’s up to her to prove she’s deserving of that shot.

“No matter what people say, boxing is a business. The promoters are in it for money, so I think for me, I have to prove that I will make them money and to do that, you have to perform, win fights and be appealing to watch. Give me a year at most, and people will have noticed me and know my name, then hopefully we can start progressing with promoters, but at the minute it’s a case of staying busy. I want to be the best and to do that I need to be active, so in the short-term, I’m not even focussing on promoters, it’s a case of fighting as regularly as I can, and once I do that and I build up a record and get my name out there, hopefully, they will come knocking for me.”