Sam Lightfoot: “Putting my undefeated record on the line so early was scary, but I trust in my team and my ability.”

Sam Lightfoot: “Putting my undefeated record on the line so early was scary, but I trust in my team and my ability.”

Sam Lightfoot rolled the dice on Saturday night in Northampton. Lightfoot took a fight on just one week’s notice. She went in the away corner. Fighting the unbeaten ‘house’ fighter. It was a gamble. An unbeaten prospect herself. But it was a gamble that most certainly paid off.

Lightfoot defeated the previously unbeaten Zoe Newton on a BCB Promotions card. The Sheffield fighter extended her resume to 3-0 courtesy of a 39-37 scorecard.

“I wouldn’t say I was doubting myself,” Lightfoot says of the decision to take the fight on such short notice. “I train day in, day out for a sport I love. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t absolutely bricking it because I was. Putting my undefeated record on the line so early was scary, but I trust in my team and my ability.”

Despite the victory, Lightfoot admits it was a hard night’s work. “It was a tough fight. She was a bigger woman with the weight advantage. This isn’t the weight I normally fight at. It was a real toe-to-toe fight. The type of fight that people like to see. After taking a few shots in the opening seconds of the first round, I settled and started getting into it more.”

Lightfoot returns on June 27th. A hometown gig in Sheffield. Doina Costin will be in the opposite corner. Another little step-up for the ambitious 23-year-old. It will be her first taste of doing six rounds.

“I’m absolutely buzzing,” Lightfoot told me. “The more fights, the better for me. This is what I live for. I love the buzz. More rounds this time and in my home city, so more people can make it to the fight.”

“Doina Costin, from what I’ve seen, she’s a tough game opponent,” Lightfoot added. “So I’m not going about this fight lightly. I’ll be treating it like a title fight.”

It was a long process for Sam Lightfoot in getting her British Boxing Board of Control licence. But Lightfoot is now unbeaten in three fights, and she is enjoying her journey to date. “It’s great,” Lightfoot says. “I’m taking to it very well. I think. It has its downsides, but everything does in life. This is what I was meant to do, and I’m going to make it work.”

Sam Lightfoot is a fighter in a hurry. The June date is already locked in. Another for later this year is also. The Dave Allen-managed prospect has a plan for the remainder of 2026. “God willing, I’ll have a title by the end of the year. That fight is already in the pipeline. People are going to know who Sam Lightfoot is for sure this year.”