Emma Dolan: “It’s My Time.”

Emma Dolan: “It’s My Time.”

By Garry White

 “Those places smelt of cheap fags and beer. That kind of stale cocktail will always take me back to my early amateur fights,” laughs IBF super-flyweight world title challenger Emma Dolan. In that dilapidated Social Club netherworld of flat Carling, roll-ups and unloved John Smith’s Extra Smooth, she is once again a shy and skinny 12-year-old.

“I was really nervous,” remembers Dolan, perhaps not surprisingly, of her amateur debut. “I’d never been in a ring with a girl before. I’d only sparred with boys. But before you know it, the bell rings, and you’ve no time to think. What feels like seconds later, they’re raising your arm. I don’t think I spoke for an hour afterwards. I must have been in shock. But boxing had me hooked from there.

“That was back in 2010 as well,” adds Dolan quizzically. “I was having my first ever proper fight the same year that Irma Garcia was turning pro.” It’s an abrupt nod to the reigning champion, who will be taking her belt on the road for the first time next month. Garcia (25-5-1, 5KOs) may lack profile in Europe, but in her native Mexico, she has appeared on top-tier promotions and has won versions of world titles across two weight divisions.

At 44 years old, it would be easy to frame this fight as the ageing champion against the young pretender. Or perhaps more pertinently, a champion who works by day as a police officer in the stifling environs of Mexico City, with a limited profile, seeking the opportunity for one last decent payday. Who could blame her? But the Norfolk native is having none of it.

“A lot of people are talking about her [Garcia] age and stuff. But I just don’t think it affects women as much. There’s a lot more longevity in women’s boxing – maybe due to two-minute rounds,” explains Dolan.

“Irma is very experienced. She’s been there and done ten rounds multiple times. I have full respect for her and have no doubt that she won’t make it easy for me. But, yeah, I do believe this is my time, and I plan to rip the title away from her.”

At a packed London Olympia on Easter Sunday, Dolan (8-0, 1KO) will get her chance to do just that. With Jake Paul’s promotional outfit, MVP leading the way, she now has the opportunity and shop window that she has craved since becoming the IBF’s number one contender in July last year.

With Garcia being ordered to defend her belt against Dolan, the purse-bid process moved with predictable slowness. At one point, Dolan’s manager/trainer Carl Greaves and sponsor, Baz Jordan, were going to put up the money themselves and host it on a small hall show in Norfolk. “It just shows you the bond we all have,” says the unbeaten 27-year-old.

“They weren’t going to make much money out of it. Probably nothing at all once they’d paid purse bids and all that stuff. They just wanted to do it for me.”

But they needn’t have worried. When Dolan and her team logged into the Zoom meeting to discuss bids, MVP were already there, ready and waiting. “It was crazy – totally mental!” laughs Dolan. “But now I’m on this massive platform, I hope to get a bit of recognition – people can finally see what I’m about.”

It isn’t difficult to understand what Dolan means by ‘recognition’. It is a term she bristles at, and as the inaugural winner of both British and Commonwealth titles at 115 lbs, perhaps it is something that she should no longer be required to search for.

Despite these accolades, it has been a stop-start career to-date for the Newark-based challenger, who has had to endure her share of downtime. A pro career that kicked off in 2021, with an impressively old-school three fights in as many months, has seen her box just five times since. “It wasn’t by choice,” she says, and it is symptomatic of the freezeout nature of boxing for fighters outside of a promotional deal and on the fringes of the TV end of the sport.

Dolan reveres the sports legends and talks knowledgably about fighters all the way from the sepia days of Willie Pep through to the glory days of Hagler, Hearns and co. She lives and breathes the sport, spending her evenings watching old fights on YouTube. No doubt this has driven her onward in the ring, but her fixation on the old school has at times left her adrift in today’s increasingly influential social media stakes. 

Dolan is a boxer for the purist and not the casual fan. She doesn’t trash-talk – “well, not unless someone has a go at me first!” – and isn’t interested in the glamour and ravenous self-promotion that, often, by necessity, is pushed through social media. She suffers through press conferences as a means to an end rather than the end in itself.

“Don’t some of them go on and on. Honestly, I think some people enjoy the press conferences more than the actual boxing” she speculates, perhaps not unfairly.

With the fight due to be shown live on Sky Sports, it will mark only Dolan’s second opportunity to venture out of the narrow confines of the small hall shows and to reach a wider television audience. It is almost two years since she upended boxing’s applecart by outpointing Anthony Joshua-managed and Matchroom-promoted Shannon Ryan at Birmingham’s Live Arena. Following a convincing, up-tempo performance that included a second-round knockdown, Dolan won the spoils. She then expected the phone to ring with promotional opportunities and offers of big fights. It didn’t.

Starved of opportunities, it would have been easy to lose heart. But throughout, her mantra has continued to be that “cream will always rise to the top.” A convincing York Hall defence of her belts over former European champion Lauren Parker last time out has kept her busy whilst she has waited in the wings for the big one. “I’ve had to keep patient and believe that it will happen,” she says.

“Even though I haven’t been fighting as much as I would like, I’ve been able to get some good sparring in. My lungs are good. I could get out of bed any morning and just be conditioned and ready to fight. We had Giordana Sorrentino (4-0 unbeaten pro and two-time Olympian) in recently, and I hadn’t sparred since before Christmas. I did ten rounds comfortably. 

“That gives me confidence. One positive of not fighting regularly is that I don’t have too many miles on the clock,” she adds.

Appearing on an all-female card with some of the biggest domestic and international names in women’s boxing isn’t something that daunts Dolan. She doesn’t doubt that she has the tools and desire to share a platform with the likes of Chantelle Cameron, Terri Harper, Caroline Dubois and, most pertinently, Ellie Scotney. The charismatic and lavishly talented ‘Catford Queen’ is positioned to be the youngest British four-belt world champion should she get the job done over WBA belt holder Mayalli Flores.

“It’s just a dream come true that it has come together for Ellie and me at the same time. We’ve been good mates since we met at an amateur tournament in Sweden more than ten years ago,” reveals Dolan. “We are very similar people, and I honestly don’t think either of us has changed in the time since.

“That I get to fight for a world title on the same card where Ellie fights for an ‘undisputed’ is fantastic. The stars have really aligned for us on this one!”

When Dolan does enter the ring at Olympia next month, she will experience the rare feeling of having a home crowd rooting for her. Since her early fights in and around Norwich, she has fought perpetually on the road, compelled to even defend her belts in somebody else’s backyard. The fact that she keeps on winning is a testament to her bloody-mindedness and the purity of her vision to keep progressing in a sport that has given her nothing voluntarily.

“Yeah, but I’ll still be walking out second. I’m not bothered if everyone cheers for me or they all boo me,” shrugs Dolan, in a nod to her being the perpetual outsider.

“Home or away? It makes zero difference to me. Irma’s still the champ. But my mindset is that I’m going to rip her to pieces and get that belt. I believe that’s what you have to do if you want to win a world title. What is happening outside of the ring makes no difference to that.”

Despite previously praising Garcia’s experience and removing age as a potential factor to exploit, the woman nicknamed ‘Dynamite’ does plan to test the champion’s engine with a customarily up-tempo performance. “I can do two-minute rounds easily, and I’m able to recover very quickly. I plan to make them very hard rounds for Irma. It won’t be one pace, I promise. It’ll be very high-gear, and I plan to test her fully,” reveals Dolan ominously.

“I’m going to bully her. I’ll box her and use my range, my footwork, my power – but obviously I’ll be careful because I know what she brings to the table. Irma is well-educated and highly experienced. I need to be mindful of that. But I’m not going in carelessly and getting caught with something – I’ll box her very cleverly but with plenty of aggression.”

When the cameras are put away, and it’s just Dolan and the smothering walls of her London hotel room, how does she plan to deal with the silence and expectation? “Well, I’ll be watching Tommy Hearns versus Roberto Duran,” she swiftly counters. “I watched that one before I beat Shannon Ryan, and I dropped her in the second round as well. So, it has to be that one!”

No doubt the woman nicknamed ‘Dynamite’ will be aiming to follow ‘The Hitman’s’ lead again when she steps out at Olympia.