Natasha Jonas Awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours List

Natasha Jonas Awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours List

Natasha Jonas has gained another accolade to add to the many plaudits she has already received in her quite remarkable boxing career. The 40-year-old has been awarded a much-deserved MBE in the latest King’s Birthday Honours list.

As an amateur, Jonas represented her country at the 2012 London Olympic Games, and she won medals at European and World Championships. Jonas, a five-time, two-weight world champion, is currently contemplating her next move after losing her unified world welterweight titles to Lauren Price in March, and there is every chance ‘Miss GB’ has fought her last fight. But if Jonas has indeed made her final ring walk, she can look back with much pride on her nineteen years in boxing. A career of many ups and downs, Jonas has needed perseverance and plenty of it at times, and while boxing hasn’t always treated her right, it has been some career. Make no mistake, Natasha Jonas has been a pivotal figure in the rise of women’s boxing over the last decade and more. Her importance to her side of the sport can’t be understated.

“There’s nothing better than proving people wrong,” Jonas once told me, and that is maybe the story of her career. Jonas was written off after suffering a shocking stoppage defeat to Viviane Obenauf in 2018. But against all the odds, Jonas ignored the loud calls to retire and steadily rebuilt her confidence.

The Liverpool fighter wanted a world title to her name, but when Terri Harper gave her a chance to win one, Jonas was given little chance in 2020. But Jonas was deemed desperately unlucky to come away with only a draw in their titanic super-featherweight battle. But she had proved a point. Jonas had another near-miss against Katie Taylor the following year with the undisputed world lightweight titles on the line. Taylor won a wafer-thin points decision, and Jonas was again left frustrated. But she wasn’t done yet.

Jonas signed with Boxxer and moved up to super-welterweight and finally won her cherished world title with a crushing victory over Chris Namus on an emotional night in 2022. Jonas won the vacant WBO title in Manchester and in the same year, she added the WBC and IBF baubles to her collection with victories over Patricia Berghult and Marie Eve Dicaire. 2022 gave Jonas everything and more, and when the British Boxing Board of Control awarded her their Fighter of the Year honours, the first female to do so, few could argue.

2023 only brought one fight for Jonas, a stoppage win over Kandi Wyatt that earned her the vacant IBF welterweight title. Jonas returned in early 2024 to beat Mikaela Mayer on points in a fight that the IBF deemed their fight of the year. It was a pleasure to be ringside that night in Liverpool. The fight could, in truth, have gone either way; I couldn’t split them on the night. But scoring issues aside, it was one of the greatest female fights of the modern era. Jonas returned in December to beat the WBC welterweight champion Ivana Habazin to claim her fifth world title.

The Hall of Fame will undoubtedly be in her future, and if the loss to Lauren Price is the last time we see Natasha Jonas inside a boxing ring, her career will more than stand the test of time. “I am proud of what I have achieved,” Jonas says of her career. The MBE is another little stamp of approval for her achievements.

“Everything I have done in the boxing ring is a testament to my family, community, environment, and was pivotal in shaping me into the athlete I became. To be recognised for things I do outside the ring is personal to me. I think if you have a voice, platform, and influence, you should use it positively to help better the lives of people you come across. I’ve looked up to the likes of Manny Pacquiao and Tanni Grey-Thompson for doing just that. I’m honoured to be recognised in this way.”

I remember the night Jonas stopped Namus in two rounds to finally win her first world title. There was relief and more in Manchester. When Jonas came back to the fight hotel, every single person in the bar started an organic round of applause for her. Jonas knew what that world title meant to her, and so did they.