Kate McLaren: “I was pushing myself so hard, just to prove that I belonged in this sport. I’m doing what I love to do.”

Kate McLaren: “I was pushing myself so hard, just to prove that I belonged in this sport. I’m doing what I love to do.”

The days of Kate McLaren are long. But extremely rewarding.

“I’m up at 5 every day, including Saturday and Sunday. I run my own personal training business as well as the boxing,” McLaren told me over Zoom at the end of one of those frantic days. “I train all my clients and then I do all my training around midday and I tend to finish up around 3 and then in the evenings I do my recovery and then whatever else needs doing, admin or invoicing or whatever it might be.”

Like many, the journey to a boxing ring for Kate McLaren came from a very low point in her life. It might not quite be a story that boxing saved her. But it is not that much of a stretch to say that is indeed the case. McLaren was very low in 2020. A toxic relationship had ended. The Covid pandemic added to her feeling of isolation. And then boxing came into her life, and suddenly, her life changed for the better.

“My whole world was turned upside down in December 2020. My mental health was at an all-time low. I didn’t have the support around me that I needed,” McLaren relayed to me. “Obviously, I am originally from the UK, I left there at a very young age. I kind of blinked, and everything got turned upside down. I was just in a really terrible place if I am being honest. I knew the only way I could fix myself was to find the courage to get back in the gym, and that was pretty much exactly what I did. I went to the gym, started training, and my mental health started to get a whole lot better.”

McLaren oozes confidence over Zoom. Happy with her life, a far cry from her days in the UK and even more so before boxing gave her everything that she had been looking for her entire life. McLaren was restricted in many ways in those teenage years. Not allowed to grow as a person, confined to others’ expectations of her. McLaren was told her life was scripted to go to school and then get a routine 9-5 job. But she wanted more. Much more.

“I was very lost in my direction with my life back in the UK. I didn’t know what I was chasing. I was definitely in a very negative environment.”

The life back then was one of cutting hair. It didn’t excite her. It didn’t satisfy. McLaren had bigger dreams.

“I did a lot of work for Toni & Guy cutting hair for the models, and I remember thinking I want to be that person in the chair,” McLaren told me. “For me, it wasn’t what I loved to do. Cutting hair was just my way of paying the bills, and I guess just getting through life. I didn’t have that drive to be a hairdresser. It wasn’t how I visualised my life.”

McLaren eventually became the person in the chair. She started modelling when she was 17. Her time as a model was successful. But the love for exercise was always there. Without it, she feels incomplete. A daily therapy her body and mind need, McLaren told me.

“I’ve always loved exercise, and without it, I feel I would be very depressed. Exercise just makes me feel amazing, and it is very uplifting either if you are competing or just going to the gym. I just feel exercise is a great medicine.”

But thoughts of taking regular physical activity into something else were never there. She had a background in martial arts and had been asked before to consider fighting for real. The doubts and demons suppressing any such thoughts. But at a time when she had reached rock bottom in 2020, McLaren, with nothing to lose, finally succumbed to the voices around her.

“I think not wanting to fight came down to being afraid of not winning because I had such low esteem and not being a very confident person and worrying what other people thought. But when I got this opportunity to fight, I had literally lost everything, and I just thought f..k it. I’ve lost everything, I am going to risk it. You’ve got to take the risks to get the big rewards.”

The voice of Jeff Fenech persuaded McLaren to leave her job and gamble everything on a fighting future. The former model set about building a brand, engaging sponsors, and began an incredible training regime to take her from an aspiring novice boxer to a fully-fledged professional boxer.

“I started boxing in December 2020, I didn’t really think anything would really come of it. I’ve always loved training and fitness, but I never saw myself as a professional athlete. I had my first corporate fight in 2020, I was lucky enough to cross paths with the former world champion, Jeff Fenech, and that man changed my life. He told me I was 30 years old and said we didn’t have time to put me through a lengthy amateur career. He told me I was dedicated and driven and that I had a lot of power behind my punches. Jeff asked me if I would turn professional, and that was an opportunity I couldn’t turn down, and I haven’t looked back since. Fast forward three years, and I am ranked the number one welterweight in the country, and I am proud of how far I have come in such a short period of time.” The initial doubts morphed into a defining moment in her life twelve weeks later. Her hand raised in victory, not just for her first-ever fight but more crucially, in her fight for her mental health. Very quickly, Kate McLaren was all in.

“I was pushing myself so hard, just to prove that I belonged in this sport. I’m doing what I love to do.” Words from someone who literally turned herself a fighter.

Those early days are now firmly behind her. McLaren is now six fights in. Four wins and two draws is her current resume. But those two minor blemishes were in her first two fights. Four straight wins have followed. She is ranked as the top fighter in her country at her weight and is steadily climbing the world rankings also. Another title fight is next.

Fight number seven will land on December 16th. A dream fight in many ways, and one that came somewhat out of the blue McLaren told me.

“I’m so excited. I’m big on the law of attraction and manifestation. I do a vision board every year, and I have managed to tick a load of things off that this year. I’ve won two belts this year. The New South Wales and Australasian welterweight titles and I have had my eye on the WBC title to finish the year off but nothing was aligning so I thought ok its not going to happen and I think I was going to take the rest of the year off. I did a camp over in LA, and it was amazing. What we were trying to do was do that camp and then fight in December, but we couldn’t align the opponent that we had our eye on. But the day before, I was looking at my vision board and thinking if only I could finish the year off with just one more fight. I went to the gym the next day and did all my training as normal, and my coach pulled me to one side and said December 16th, the WBC Australasian title, do you want it?” So I’ve literally gone straight into camp. I’m over the moon and ecstatic about this fight and the chance to win that title. If I can get my hands on that, it would really boost my ranking, and that will really help to fight for a world title. It’s a massive fight for me. It’s putting me on the right path and in the right direction, and I am so excited.”

Fight week is approaching, a win, and McLaren will move another step closer to her dream if she extends her winning streak to five. She wants a world title, something that would have seemed ludicrous not so long ago. But now things are very different. But Kate McLaren is level-headed enough to know she still has a little way to go yet.

“It’s one step at a time you don’t sprint to the top of the mountain,” McLaren says. “I have to get my ranking up higher to be able to have an opportunity to fight for a world title. But I am definitely on the right path, and I am definitely not stopping here. I haven’t come this far just to come this far. This isn’t the end of the journey. My dream is to fight for a world title.