Nicola Barke: “I am glad I made the decision to transition into boxing because I feel like this is my final opportunity to make a career out of my passion, and you only live once.”

Nicola Barke: “I am glad I made the decision to transition into boxing because I feel like this is my final opportunity to make a career out of my passion, and you only live once.”

By Matt Elliott 

The route that boxers take when turning professional is often a varied one. The traditional path, or at least the one I hear about most often, usually starts with the individual becoming involved in the sport at an early age, working their way through the amateurs and then turning over when either the opportunity presents itself, or the situation dictates it is the right time. More recently, with the emergence of white-collar boxing, we have seen individuals use that as a stepping stone into the professional world. Then we have those individuals who transition into boxing from another sport, and that was the path taken by recent Queensberry Promotions signing Nicola Barke.

Barke, a former world champion in Taekwondo, chose to move across to boxing in 2021 after a period spent competing in Lethwei, a Burmese martial art where almost anything is legal – punching, kicking, elbowing, headbutting, even standing chokes are allowed, all without the aid of gloves – and Barke not only became the first UK female to compete in the discipline, she went on to become ranked number two in the world. Had it not been for a military coup in Burma in 2021, there is every chance she would still be competing, but that proved to be the catalyst to look elsewhere, as Barke explained when I caught up with her via Zoom this past week.

“I had hoped to continue competing in Lethwei. It’s a very brutal sport and kind of like any rule goes. You are not able to compete under Lethwei rules in the UK for obvious reasons, so when I was competing it was over in Burma (now Myanmar), and during the COVID pandemic there was a military coup and the whole country was shut down, and it’s not deemed safe to travel or visit, so for that reason, I was left with two choices. I could wait it out and see if things resolved themselves so I could go back and compete, or I could try my hand at something different. At the time I’d injured my knee during training, so all I was doing was boxing, and the more I was doing it, the more I was enjoying it, and that’s where the decision to transition came from.”

Barke’s professional debut took place in November 2021 at the Maidstone Leisure Centre, a points victory over Tereza Dvorakova in the super lightweight division. Two further victories followed during 2022, before her last appearance in March of this year, when she defeated Laura Reoyo. That was her first fight since making a huge life decision to relocate from Luton to Sheffield, to train and fight out of the Steel City Gym, where she works with Pearce Gudgeon and Grant Smith. At the same time, Barke was looking to secure a new management company, meaning the majority of 2023 has been about putting in place the right team to take her forward.

“In January of this year, I decided to completely relocate and change gym, change trainer, change manager, and fully move to Sheffield. I think all fellow boxers who are trying to get out of their managerial contract can sort of appreciate and understand the frustrations involved with that. It gives you a period of time within your career where you are not able to fight because you have to navigate things outside of the ring and follow the right procedures. It’s been a bit tumultuous, to say the least, but it’s nice to be at the end of the year, and now I feel like I am in a really strong position in terms of the foundations being laid. I’ve got a fantastic team behind me in Steel City Gym, I’ve found a home up in Sheffield, and I’ve signed with S-Jam as my management company, and it was them who got me the deal with Frank Warren and Queensberry, and with that comes the opportunity to fight on TNT Sports and get my name out there and showcase my talent. So, on the surface, it might look as if things are not happening, but behind the scenes, it’s all coming together.”

One of the most important decisions a fighter can make is which gym they join forces with. Selecting the right environment and the right coaches is fundamental to future success. They need someone who understands how they work but who is prepared to challenge them all the way. In Barke’s case, the decision to uproot her life to Sheffield, to join Steel City, can not have been an easy one. I was keen to understand how that all came about.

“So, I did my first three fights down south, in a gym in Essex, and then decided to move to Steel City. The selection process was, admittedly, very thorough. I think for me, something that was really important when looking for a new gym and trainer was finding somewhere that has demonstrated they can take professionals who’ve just turned over, all the way to the top. I want to be able to stay with a team who can develop and hone my skills, but beyond that a team that is willing to embrace me having a strength & conditioning coach, a mindset coach, and a nutritionist, and proactively collaborating with them. So, when I looked through all of the different gyms, I had this big Excel spreadsheet, I just kept circling Steel City, and thinking if I made that move, I’d have to leave my family and my friends, I wouldn’t know anyone there and I’d also have to speak with work to get their support to make the move. So, it was a big decision, but when I’d sort of reviewed and compared everything and saw the calibre of the athletes they already had at the gym, I knew it was the right place for me. I went up around Christmas Eve last year for a trial, and I just felt immediately at home. Everyone in the gym genuinely supports each other and wants you to do your best. It’s a great environment.”

Barke mentioned seeking support from her workplace when deciding to relocate, and it’s often easy to forget, that as someone who has only recently moved into professional boxing, she needs to maintain her career outside of the sport to fund her dream of competing on the biggest stages. Barke works for HSBC and has been with the bank for over eight years. It is important to highlight the role they have played in helping her get to this stage.

“They’ve been remarkable with their support, allowing me to work flexibly so I can get all of my training sessions in, and supporting moves to various places, they’ve always tried their absolute best to make it happen. I’ve been with them long enough now that I qualify for a sabbatical, so from the beginning of 2024, I will be taking six months out, which just enables me to fully commit to boxing for that period and allows me to rest properly between sessions. That is a huge help and overall, I just can’t fault them, and I think it’s nice to have my dream supported by my other professional career and to be able to do them both at a high level.” 

As someone who has spent a large part of her working life in the financial services sector, and knowing from previous interviews Barke has given that she also holds a first-class degree in biomedical sciences, I wondered how she had ended up getting involved in the world of combat sports.

“As a teenager, I’d done ballet for about 16 years and danced for the Royal National Ballet, but I always compared myself to all of the other girls at the time and I used to have these three little medals and the other girls were littered, like neck to hips, in medals and I thought to myself when am I going to be good at something, like genuinely really good. And it was just my logic at the time, as a young girl, thinking, well if I’m not doing particularly grand in this sport, maybe I’ll be great at the complete opposite. The Duke of Edinburgh award had come about at that time, and they sort of encourage you to take on a new physical activity, and I was like, you know what I think this might be Martial Arts, as it ticks so many boxes, so let me try my hand at Taekwondo. I remember turning up to my first session and it was horrific, but I’d sort of committed to it and made such a song and dance in getting my parents to help me switch over, so I stuck with it, and by the end I enjoyed it. I like the science and the theology behind it as it’s very much about a way of life, as opposed to just punching and kicking. I felt like it set me in such good stead for having good personal foundations, as it encourages integrity and perseverance, respect, indomitable spirit, things like that and for me they stuck, so I was like, not only does this make me a better person, I can start to enjoy it now.”

Barke went on to have enormous success in the sport, the pinnacle being winning the world championships in Canada, despite competing with a fractured foot. An attempt to make the Olympics in Rio was curtailed through further injury, and it was at that point that Barke fancied a new challenge, so moved across to kickboxing, where she won a British title and was ranked number one in the UK before the opportunity came about to compete in Lethwei.

“My mum is from Burma, so when I was competing in kickboxing, I had the nickname the Burmese Python. The Burmese community are huge supporters of anyone who proudly represents their name, so it was the organiser or promoter of Lethwei over in Burma who reached out to me and said you’ve got a really big fanbase over here, how do you fancy fighting under Lethwei rules? So, I was like ok, give me a year to train as I’ve never thrown a headbutt in my life or had a street fight, so I am going to have to get a different type of conditioning for this and I also needed to learn the rules and find a coach over here who could teach me. Within a year, I was on a plane over there to compete. I was the first female from the UK to fight under those rules, and it was the first time they’d created a female division in the sport. It was really exciting and especially to be able to take Mum back to her home country, which was a nice touch.”  

Focussing back on boxing, Barke’s Queensberry debut has been delayed due to her suffering another fractured foot, which has forced her to wear a protective boot over recent weeks. With that injury beginning to subside, she is hopeful of making her debut around March or April of next year and is aiming to compete three to four times during 2024. What, then, does Barke feel is a realistic achievement within the next twelve to eighteen months?

“It would be nice to get a British title and be the first female within the super lightweight division to achieve that. It’s a super competitive division but that’s exactly what we want, and you know, it’s not just this division, it’s right across the sport, you are seeing the levels improve continuously, which makes the sport more exciting and helps improve the overall skill level of all women’s boxing, so it’s a great thing.”

So, as we move towards 2024 and with everything seemingly falling in place for Barke, how does she feel about her decision to move across into the world of professional boxing?

“As an athlete in any sport, we have a bit of a lifespan, in regards to how long you can compete at a really high level, and looking back I am glad I made the decision to transition into boxing because I feel like this is my final opportunity to make a career out of my passion and you only live once. It’s sort of now or never.”