Roha Hudson: “Don’t get me wrong, I am nervous, but I didn’t think I would be this excited for my professional debut.”

Roha Hudson: “Don’t get me wrong, I am nervous, but I didn’t think I would be this excited for my professional debut.”

It’s been a long time coming. The announcement of the commencement of her professional career came last April. But for Roha Hudson, that long wait ends next month in Coventry on a GBM Sports show.

The extended wait for her professional debut certainly hasn’t dampened the excitement of a fighter who went through her amateur career without losing a single fight.

“I can’t stop training. My coach is going mad at me, saying I will burn myself out. But I can’t stop training. I am so excited. It’s all I can think about,” Hudson told me over Zoom just a few weeks away from that maiden professional ring walk. “Don’t get me wrong, I am nervous, but I didn’t think I would be this excited for my professional debut. I am so tunnel-focused on it that I am having fun with it. I thought I would have to be more serious and lose my personality. But it’s all come into one and I am having the most fun with my training.”

The delay has been frustrating for Hudson, who has been ready to go for the best part of a year. There were two lost years before that. Hudson caught COVID-19 in 2021 and ended up seriously ill in the hospital due to complications from the virus that stopped the world from turning around that time.

“When I was in the hospital, I was in a wheelchair and I had to use crutches, and when I came out, I had to use a Zimmer frame. I was diagnosed with neurological dysfunction, essential tremors, and a few other things. I still had existing issues with my lungs from my pneumonia, and I had to keep going back to the hospital.” Hudson told me last year.

That illness, which could have had even far more serious implications, took away plenty. But not her resolve. The lingering health issues took time to heal, and plenty of it, but even though Hudson is now firmly back on the road to recovery, the events of that awful time in 2021, delayed her debut in the professional ranks.

“Because of my illness, the medicals took a long time,” Hudson says. “It was a really long time. My real name is Rosie, but I changed my name to Roha, and they wanted all the paperwork for that. So that took a while as well.”

Hudson will make her debut on a big show. An environment where she intends to stay. GBM Sports are taking their impressive and ever-developing show on the road next month, with Hudson scheduled to open the card in her hometown. The size of the show has only heightened the expectations for a fighter who just can’t wait for March 9th.

“I said to my coach I thought I would have my first fight in a leisure centre. So I think that is adding to the excitement. Everything is just coming together like a dream. Some people have labelled me Britain’s unluckiest boxer with all the mishaps and my illness. The boxing gym was flooded for four months just as I got my fight date. We only reopened about three weeks ago, but I have now landed on this big show. In my hometown. It’s just crazy.”

There are lofty ambitions to win world titles. The infectious personality is only matched by the size of those ambitions. Hudson is still finding her feet after only eight fights in the unpaid ranks. The grind of her first professional camp is part of that learning process. Trying to find what weight her body and skills are better suited to.

“My debut will be at super-middleweight. But we are definitely looking at dropping down to middleweight,” Hudson told FightPost. “The weight has dropped off me. I am on weight now, and I still have got five weeks to go. But we will stay at this weight and get a little experience and see how I box at which weight. I am very quick for this weight. So when I come up against these big girls, my power is still there, but I have also got the speed against them as well. If I drop down, you are then up against girls who have that speed naturally. So we will stay at super-middleweight for now and see how it goes.”

That first professional camp has been hard and humbling. A short, albeit unbeaten amateur run, left doubts in the mind of Hudson.

“At one stage, I was worried,” Hudson says. “Three weeks ago, I cried three times in one week in the gym. I was just worrying about all the skill stuff. In the amateurs, I had the talent and the dedication, but I didn’t have the skills. I just used to get in there and throw punches. When they were teaching me the techniques, I thought I was never going to get this. I was just telling myself that I was crap. My coach asked why I was talking to myself like that. Look where you have got to. You don’t get that far for no reason. But in the last few weeks, I have seen such a difference in my mental state. Now I know I have the ambition and the talent, and I know I am going to smash it.”

Work at the Wellington Boxing Academy, her boxing home, has been rewarding now that the water and the doubts have subsided. The technique has been refined, and the confidence has been restored. Hudson has a plan. A sensible plan. Her team will curb that natural instinct to just fight. They want her to learn her craft the right way.

But Hudson knows what she wants. A desire to stay on the big shows. An ambition to reach the very pinnacle of her sport.

“I don’t want to take a step back. I am on a big show, and I want to keep getting on these big shows. I’d fight every couple of months, but I don’t want to rush anything. I want to make sure I am doing everything right. My long-term aim is to be the best of the best. So for this year, I have got to concentrate and work on the foundations.”   

Roha Hudson will make her professional debut against Ester Konecna on Saturday 9th March at the Coventry Ice Arena.