Beyond The Ropes: Meg Kilroe

Beyond The Ropes: Meg Kilroe

I always remember when I first contacted Meg Kilroe about the possibility of doing an interview with her. “Yeah, I’d be interested! I’m not sure if it’s much to write about, though.” That was her reply. In many ways, Kilroe did herself a disservice.

Born in Franklin, Massachusetts, Kilroe started boxing in 2019 just for fitness. But a serious car accident shortly after left Kilroe lucky to be alive. “I’d only been doing the boxing fitness for a couple of months,” Kilroe told me last year. “Then Covid happened in 2020, and I was working at a hospital. I was leaving work one night and going home, and then I got hit from behind, I guess, but I have no memory of it. I went through the windshield of my car, and I was only a couple of minutes away from my house. I fractured my orbital bone. I have a scar on my lip, and I broke my C6 and C7 in my neck and my L4, L5, S1, and S2 in my lower back. I was airlifted to a trauma centre. I have no memory of it, but I had no heartbeat, I had to be resuscitated.”

Kilroe fought back from near tragedy, and from only initially wanting to lose a bit of weight, her involvement in boxing morphed into so much more. “Boxing has made me realise that there is something in me that I didn’t know was there. I have passed limits that I didn’t know existed.”

The desire to fight consumed her. But Meg Kilroe has been fighting her entire life. Born with a degenerative hip disease, Kilroe had a hip replacement when she was just nineteen. “I am so grateful that I can even walk, so everything I do with boxing is extra to me.”

Boxing has changed everything for Kilroe. There is a dream of becoming a national champion. It’s been nine months since I last caught up with Meg Kilroe. Sadly, her career has been more stop than start in 2025. “I’ve only had two fights since we last spoke,” Kilroe told FightPost. “One win by unanimous decision and my loss by medical stoppage at the National Golden Gloves. While the goal is to fight as much as possible since so much time goes into training with pull-outs and injuries, this year hasn’t allowed me to compete as I had planned.”

Kilroe is no stranger to adversity. Her resilience has been very much tested again. “In May, at the National Golden Gloves tournament of champions in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I suffered a leg injury. In my last training session of training camp before flying out, I had felt a weird pop in my leg and had some bruising, but ultimately decided to fly out the next day to compete at Nationals. I knew my calf wasn’t 100% but I didn’t feel like my Achilles was injured from my judgment as a nurse. I felt it was something I could compete through, and I didn’t want to just give up after preparing so much.

“In my fight, I fought a very tough top-level fighter. I performed well in the first round, out-jabbing her and countering all her big overhands with well-timed check hooks. But in the second round, when I threw a step check hook and landed my right leg, my leg gave out, and I fell to the ground. I tried to get up and fight through it, but my leg kept feeling “stuck”, and it was hard to push any weight off of it. The doctor checked it and allowed me to continue fighting, but within a few minutes, it was decided to stop the fight. The ref said to me that boxing is hard enough on two legs, let alone one. I was crushed because, even injured, I was still competitive in that bout, and I was doing well until that happened. I was gutted. I ended up at Oklahoma University Medical Centre immediately following the fight and was diagnosed with a grade three calf tear and a partial Achilles tear in my right leg.”

It’s been a difficult period of late for the 30-year-old as her boxing career was again put on hold. “At first, it was beyond frustrating because I was in such great shape, preparing for a tournament run and another immediately following in June,” Kilroe relayed to me. “And it was another major setback. Injuries, especially big ones, can be very hard mentally, and at first, I was definitely feeling defeated and discouraged. I’ve turned my mindset into focusing on that a setback is only the end if you stop trying, so overcome it, so that’s what I’m doing.”

Kilroe is well on her way to full recovery, with her comeback only a matter of weeks away. “The rehab process has been slow and long,” Kilroe says. “Following my procedures back in May, I worked with one of the top sports medicine doctors, Anthony Schena, and top sports physical therapist David Merson to develop a plan of care to get me back on track for competitions in the fall. From procedures to the boot and crutches, we slowly worked on advancing movements in a hydro treadmill, a lot of soft tissue work for breaking up scar tissue and build-up and then rebuilding my strength and use of my lower right leg. We aimed for a faster-than-typical successful recovery so that I don’t miss another national ranking competition. The physical therapy sessions with David Merson, who created custom boxing shoe inserts with support for my leg, have been key in getting me back.

“My leg has improved significantly, and although not 100%, I am still on a very good track for the recovery plan. I still work on it multiple days a week and will continue to. I will be competing at the 2025 USA Boxing National Open beginning on September 13th. It is actually being held at the same venue where my injury occurred.”

Hopefully, all the injury woes are now firmly in the rear-view mirror, and next month really is a new beginning for Meg Kilroe. The American will look to stay active in the coming months, all leading up to the National Championships in December.

The story of Meg Kilroe is very much one of resilience. All it needs is that closing chapter, and that long-time dream of wanting to become a national champion could be realised before the close of play in 2025.