Monique Bovino: “I can fight, but I can also talk. So do I now combine the two worlds?”

Monique Bovino: “I can fight, but I can also talk. So do I now combine the two worlds?”

Monique Bovino is incredibly busy. Every hour of her day is virtually spoken for. An early start for the day job flying around Australia in a helicopter doing the traffic and weather reports for an Australian TV station. “I get up at 4am every day. I then do meetings pretty much until I go to bed.” The day starts early. Finishes late.

In truth, the 26-year-old Australian has two day jobs. Although even that might be an understatement. A blossoming media career in combat sports, especially in boxing. Bovino is the perfect embodiment of not wasting a single second of her working day.

Last month, the former world featherweight champion Skye Nicolson returned to her home country to headline a Matchroom-promoted show against Mariah Turner in Flemington, Melbourne, live on DAZN. Bovino was part of that night. “It was amazing,” Bovino told me over Zoom. “I had so much fun. I did social reporting for DAZN. It was a little bit different because I am usually the host, but I was doing a lot more social-based work. It was fast-paced work, and it was really fun. The whole show went really well with a lot of good Australian talent. It was nice to see Skye again. I haven’t seen her since her last show in Brisbane.”

The role last month was a slight change for the versatile Bovino. “It was a different kind of preparation because I knew every fighter on the card, and I had recently been to a lot of their fights. I knew a lot about their backgrounds. I could talk quite easily to them without doing too much research on them. There was more preparation regarding what social videos we were going to grab. What ideas were we going to use because with the socials, it’s always what is the next best thing?”

Bovino has made no secret of her desire to do even more for the streaming home of boxing. That desire has only been heightened by her recent experience with them. “I love working with DAZN,” Bovino says. “I think they are an incredible team to work for when it comes to broadcasting. Everyone there treats me so nicely. Everyone I deal with is so lovely. I really value that in the boxing landscape being a female.”

Her success in her native land is obvious. But her home country does offer certain restrictions in terms of expanding her role with DAZN. “The biggest problem at the moment for me is that in Australia, we only have one promotion that is giving content to DAZN. I am working for Beatdown Promotions, which is an MMA show. That is the only content that they are taking from Australia at the moment. I am still grateful to be part of that. But I think the biggest goal for me is to do overseas work. So for them to bring me over there with the costs of the flights is a very big ordeal, and you have to fly them in earlier because of the time difference. I think in the future it is definitely something we are talking about, but at the moment the biggest goal is getting out of Australia.”

“100% I would,” Bovino adds when I ask if she would ever consider moving away from Australia. “If I got a good deal from a broadcaster, I would move. But it would have to be a pretty good deal, and I would have to get more exposure than what I am doing now. At the moment, over here, I would say I am the face of boxing media. I don’t really want to go somewhere else and become a nobody because I have worked so hard to get where I am in one continent.”

Bovino understands that a lot of the media gigs goes to current and former fighters. But she has fighting experience herself. Bovino has amateur credentials. A handful of fights that could have been more. Her day job and her thriving media career took priority. But thoughts of lacing on the gloves and turning professional are never far from her mind. Even more so now, if it can help push her broadcasting career to another level.

“A lot of pro fighters get jobs, so do I turn pro as well to push myself out there,” Bovino says. “I can fight, but I can also talk. So do I now combine the two worlds? That’s where I am right now. If I was to turn pro it would be in the future, but going overseas, that will be in the near future. In the next few months, I think I will be looking at doing that.”

But for someone with a successful life outside of boxing, there is a lot to consider. “It would be what circumstances are given to me. I work a full-time job now, so for me to become a pro fighter, my full-time work pays for me, so what benefit would I get by becoming a professional fighter? I have to have a compromise in there. I would need that security. At the moment, I am living my little lush life, and I don’t have to worry about anything.”

Monique Bovino is only 26. Success has been a constant part of her recent life. But that has come from hard work. And plenty of it. The itch to fight again will probably have to be scratched at some point down the line. A decision to move her life to Europe might have to be made. But whatever lies ahead, you sense that success and hard work will stay joined in perfect harmony.