Ella McDonald:  “I love pushing myself, and I love hitting people.”

Ella McDonald:  “I love pushing myself, and I love hitting people.”

It seems like a daily occurrence now that the once wafer-thin ranks of women’s boxing grow ever deeper. An announcement of a new addition to the world of professional boxing is now common practice. The lack of depth is becoming a thing of the past. Ella McDonald is the latest fighter to leave the unpaid world of amateur boxing behind her.

The Belfast native will make her maiden professional ring walk next month. A hometown gig that the 28-year-old hopes will be the start of something very special indeed. “It’s very exciting,” McDonald told me over Zoom. “It’s also a surprise. I have been boxing for just over a year. I only had my first fight last January. So, I am taking a bit of a risk, I think. But I am ready.”

The boxing journey only started in recent times, but McDonald has already amassed an impressive thirteen amateur fights. “I have been lucky,” McDonald says. “I had done a couple of those Box Cups, where you can fight three times.”

McDonald has advanced quickly in an incredibly short space of time. In her very first fight early last year, McDonald lost on points to the multi-time national champion Kaci Rock in the Ulster Elite Championships. But she returned a year later and won that very same tournament. Progress and a little sign of what she is capable of achieving in the coming years.

There were no immediate thoughts of turning professional, but a hook-up with a former world champion changed the trajectory of her career. “I started doing sessions with Ryan Burnett in September,” the 28-year-old says. “I have landed on my feet with Ryan. I am so lucky he is training me. Ryan told me I carry a lot of natural strength. I was boxing as an amateur, and hurting my opponents, but I wasn’t always winning my fights. I couldn’t work out what I was missing. Ryan said my style was more suited to the pros. At the time, I didn’t think I had enough experience to turn pro.” But the calling of a new world was too loud to ignore.

Burnett recently ran the Belfast Marathon for the Ricky Hatton Foundation. McDonald joined her trainer on the starting line and ran it in just over four hours despite minimal preparation. “I ran it on no training. If I do it next year, I’m going to train properly and try to get a good time. It was impressive at the time, and now I am thinking what a silly decision to make, because now I can’t walk. It was walking up the stairs that did it for me; we could do with a slide in my house.”

There was a little reluctance from her parents, but boxing was always on her mind. “Growing up, it was something that I loved the thought of. But when I was younger, it wasn’t really popular for girls. At the time, my parents thought it was too violent. So they tried to send me to more girlie-like hobbies. They sent me to ballet, and I cried. So, I did martial arts instead. I did jiu jitsu. I did that from when I was about 11 until I was 18. I then went to university, and I thought I would do some boxing there, but I never really picked it up. But one of the girls at work said we should do a boxercise class. From there, I just wanted to do it properly and train for a fight and have a proper go at it.”

“I love the discipline,” McDonald added. “I love pushing myself, and I love hitting people. I know that sounds mental, but where else can you do that? When I did martial arts, I just loved the physicality of that. I then thought I would always love to do MMA. My parents are only now ok with me boxing. But MMA will never happen because it is so much more violent. I love pushing myself to the limit, to see just what I can do.”

The professional debut next month could be followed by a rapid rise through the professional ranks. “Ryan would like to fast-track me because the women’s game isn’t as heavily saturated as the men’s. He thinks he can really push me on. I’ll be happy to find my feet first. It’s one thing to do it in the gym, but you have to do it under the lights as well.”

Ella McDonald has ambitions of going far in her sport, but her lofty ambitions are grounded and balanced. “I’ll stop when I can’t do it anymore,” McDonald told me. “But until then, I’m just going to keep going. I would like to go all the way. If you have a good team around you and you give it your all, then there is no reason why you can’t go to the top.”