Charlotte Johnson: “I train every day like I am fighting for a world title anyway. When I do something, I definitely put my all into it.”

Charlotte Johnson: “I train every day like I am fighting for a world title anyway. When I do something, I definitely put my all into it.”

Charlotte Johnson doesn’t have to box. A thriving career as a finance broker, Johnson has a successful life away from her sport of choice. But boxing is her passion. Johnson fights because she wants to fight. It was Ronda Rousey, at the height of her immense powers, who sparked an initial interest in fighting herself. When Johnson eventually found boxing, it didn’t start too well for her. Johnson was stopped in her very first fight, but things are very different now.

“I grew up in Tasmania, which is a little island at the bottom of Australia,” Johnson told me as we connected over Zoom. “I finished school, and I had always been pretty active in sports throughout school. After finishing my education, I obviously had a lot of free time, so I thought I would try out a boxing gym. I certainly didn’t think at that time that I would be where I am now with it. I tried out a small gym in 2019, and I just fell in love with it.”

Despite having no interest in combat sports, maybe the urge was lying somewhere deep inside her. “I’ve always liked the idea of sports that are hard and take a lot of guts. I never watched a lot of boxing growing up; I wasn’t surrounded by it at all. The first kind of exposure I got to fighting was when Ronda Rousey was at her peak in the UFC. I just thought that’s sick and so cool. That was when I was 16, but I never got into it at that age. I initially went along thinking this would be fun, something a bit different. But from there, I enjoyed it and just stuck to it.”

Johnson didn’t find success in her early days in her new sport. In her first two fights, Johnson didn’t have her hand raised. “I got stopped in the 2nd round,” the 25-year-old says of her very first ringwalk. “I probably got chucked in a little too deep. The girl whom I had fought had only three or four fights behind her. But I later found out that she was a Youth champion in MMA. I lost my second fight by a split decision. They were my only two fights with my first club. I moved onto another club, and I spent four years there, and I had twelve fights with them. I moved to a different state about eighteen months ago. I am in Queensland now, and I am with Platinum Boxing Club on the Gold Coast.”

But Johnson has recovered incredibly well from that somewhat unflattering start. She is now eighteen fights and fourteen wins into her boxing career, a resume that includes a couple of Australian titles, plus a plethora of other titles that add further shine to her record. Despite her success in the amateur code, a new world is probably in her future in the coming months. “The goal is to move into the professional ranks,” Johnson told me. “My coach has said to do one more nationals in the amateurs at the end of this year. In regard to next year, we haven’t made any plans yet, but if this is my last nationals, then next year will be working towards the pros. We certainly haven’t set any dates or made concrete plans. But the last three or four fighters I have fought have all turned professional now, so there are not that many girls left in the amateurs for me to fight. In Australia, if you have had 15-20 fights, you are probably looking to turn professional. If the competition is still there, we are not going to rush into turning professional, but if it gets increasingly difficult to get fights, then that is what we will look to do.”

Even in the limited time we had over Zoom, her passion and love for her sport shone through. A fighter, while wanting to build her own path, is respectful and appreciative of two fighters who have done so much for her side of the sport. “Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano are doing amazing things for women’s boxing,” Johnson relayed to me. “They are paving the way for other women to get into the sport.”

Johnson has seemingly found the perfect life balance. A finance broker for an Australia wide company, Johnson works from home, doing everything remotely, which allows her the flexibility she needs to forge a successful life in boxing. There is something deeply refreshing about Charlotte Johnson. There are no grand boasts of winning world titles. Just a fighter enjoying her time in the sport and seeing where her story takes her. “I don’t have any specific goals, which is probably why I have got to where I am and why I have had so much fun in boxing for the last six years. I have never said I want to win an Australian title. But I have worked hard to make those things happen. When I join the professional ranks, I will go in with the same attitude. I train every day like I am fighting for a world title anyway. When I do something, I definitely put my all into it. I kind of just take each day as it comes, and that’s worked out really well for me to get to where I am. I have a real passion for the sport, and if you put too much pressure on yourself, you start to hate it. But that’s not something I have struggled with, and that comes with being realistic and just taking each day as it comes.”