Lily Dolling: “I want to become a world champion, and I would like to do it in multiple weight classes as well.”

Lily Dolling: “I want to become a world champion, and I would like to do it in multiple weight classes as well.”

Born in Hillingdon, Lily was seemingly destined for a football career. A prolific striker at National League level. “I loved it. Every team I played for, in every single season, I was the top goalscorer,” Dolling told me over Zoom.

But boxing eventually found her. “I started boxing initially for extra fitness for my football,” Dolling told FightPost. “I was playing for Watford at the time, and I needed an extra challenge. At the time, a girl I played football with had boxed for England. I went down with her to Uxbridge, and I loved it. I was put in the ring as a ‘dummy’, but then I started to beat all the boys. I was sparring every week and I was really enjoying it. I weirdly liked getting punched in the face. I stuck at it while I was still doing the football. I then went to white-collar boxing, I had three fights there and won them. I went back to amateur boxing at Harrow. I was a semi-professional footballer at the time with Milton Keynes. I then got picked to box for England, and I then had to stop playing football. I had played football since I was six, until a year ago, but I had to stop playing because the workload was way too much.”

It was the opportunity to box for her country that prompted Lily Dolling to leave her promising football career behind. “I kind of thought boxing for England was a lifetime opportunity, and it might not come around again. I had to grab it with both hands, and it just went from there.”

Like many, Dolling gets something out of boxing that she can’t get elsewhere.

“It’s the extra challenge, the adrenaline that wouldn’t get from football,” Dolling says of what boxing gives her. “You are in the deep end on your own. It’s all down to you. If you miss a training session, then that’s on you. In football, if you miss a session, you have got the rest of your team to back you up. But in boxing, the whole focus is on you. It gives you more determination.”

In seventeen fights, Lily Dolling has only tasted defeat three times. There have been three National Titles plus a plethora of honours on the international stage. But the 19-year-old is only at the beginning of her career. A fighter already thinking of what’s in the immediate future plus fleeting thoughts of competing at the next Olympics.

“I want to win the Senior National Title. I want to then get back on the England squad and, hopefully, win a few cups boxing for England. In the future, I want to be picked to box for GB.

“I don’t think the 2028 Olympics is too soon for me. I have come on so much. I am already surrounded by the England senior squad. I just went to Benidorn and spent a week in training camp with all those girls. I have sparred Olympians and fighters who have won medals at the World Championships, and I have done really well. But my main focus right now is winning that senior title. But if I don’t win that, I will just keep on working and improving.”

“I’ll see how it turns out with England,” Dolling says of the possibility of turning professional. “If I am progressing well with them, then I will stick with England. But if it is not going the route I want with them, then I will probably turn professional in two years’ time. If before Paris, I don’t look like getting on that GB squad, then I will turn over. There is no point in waiting another four years because nothing is guaranteed, and I would have missed four years of being in the pros. In boxing, you can’t wait. You have to take things when they come.”

Dolling, a fighter who draws inspiration from the likes of Canelo Alvarez, Mike Tyson, and Katie Taylor, has aspirations to win world titles at several weights when she eventually turns professional. Competing in another combat sport is another ambition once her boxing career is over.

“I want to become a world champion, and I would like to do it in multiple weight classes as well. Just like what Claressa Shields is doing. Then, after boxing, I think I would like to turn over to MMA. I used to be around MMA in my old gym. I used to just stare at them, I loved it. But with boxing, you can’t really do that sort of training because of the injuries you would get. But once your career is over, you have nothing to lose.”