Natasha Jonas: “The only reason I haven’t announced my retirement is that I keep getting offers.”

Natasha Jonas: “The only reason I haven’t announced my retirement is that I keep getting offers.”

We haven’t seen Natasha Jonas inside a boxing ring since March. It was the night that seemingly signalled the end of her boxing career. In a big all-British world welterweight unification showdown, Lauren Price outpointed Jonas at the Royal Albert Hall, and even the Liverpool fighter seemed to acknowledge her time was probably up in her post-fight interview.

But no formal announcement has come. “The only reason I haven’t announced my retirement is that I keep getting offers,” Jonas told me over Zoom. “They keep popping up. But it has to be something major, or huge, to get me back in the ring.”

Jonas will decide her fighting future in due course. There are options out there for one last dance. A rematch with Mikaela Mayer could be revisited. “Mikaela is a big pull. With our history and her stateside presence, that would be a big fight.” But equally, could a move down to super-lightweight be a temptation? Is the prospect of winning a world title in a third weight division a big enough opportunity to tempt her back in the ring one last time? Time will tell.

Jonas doesn’t have to fight again. At 41, she has achieved everything she could have ever dreamed of. Multiple world titles at two different weights. ‘Miss GB’ could retire more than content with her achievements. Always a good sign for life after boxing.

Fighters like structure. Without it, many struggle, something that Jonas concedes.
“What I struggle with is missing the routine. I knew Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I was in the gym with Joe (Gallagher). I was there until about 1pm I then had an hour to do another session, and then pick up the baby and then do all the family stuff with her. So that was kind of my day. So now that it is not there, I have to fill my day.”

But Jonas is not just sitting on the couch watching the monotony of daytime TV. “I now do other things to fill my day,” she told me. “I always thought that when I retired, I would throw away the scales, and I would never weigh myself again. I would never go to the gym again. I always thought it was the routine I hated, having to be up at a certain time or be somewhere at a certain time. But actually, it’s the routine that I liked.”

One of the ways Jonas stays busy is with her new boxing podcast, The Overhand. Jonas works alongside Dave Coldwell and Enzo Maccarinelli on a podcast that is now ten episodes in. “It’s been good,” Jonas says of The Overhand. “It’s good to hear other people’s stories and insights from their perspective. It’s good for the audience to capture three different perspectives and told in three different ways. We have all boxed, but Dave is coming from a promoter’s setting and from coaching at a high level. Enzo is at the beginning of his coaching career now as well. We are basically just saying what we would say on social media. We have a good mix of people; we are all different, and that is what makes it work.”

Jonas, who was awarded an MBE for her services to boxing and to the community last year, recovered her career quite brilliantly from the depths of that shocking defeat to Viviane Obenauf in 2018. Jonas found inner peace when she finally won a world title in 2022, and many more followed that victory in Manchester over Chris Namus that earned her the WBO super-welterweight title. It will be that contentment that should see Jonas have a happy retirement when that moment eventually arrives. But the two-division world champion will still play an active role in the sport that defined her.

If, as expected, Sky Sports secures a broadcasting deal with Jake Paul and his Most Valuable Promotions in the next week or so, Jonas will likely return as an on-air pundit. A thriving career as a boxing manager will sit alongside her broadcasting and podcasting life. Natasha Jonas will certainly be busy. It might be a different routine from what her life once was, but many retired fighters don’t have what Jonas has. The success she found inside a boxing ring looks like being replicated outside of it.

Photo Credit: Boxxer