Tale of the tape
Here’s how the fighters measure up ahead of tonight’s main event. Both Jonas and Price came in safely under the welterweight division limit of 147lb at yesterday’s weigh-in. Jonas comes in with advantages of three inches in reach and two and a half inches in height, which could allow her to control the distance with her jab and prevent her opponent from getting inside. But Price is a decade younger, which could translate to an edge in speed, reflexes and endurance over the course of 10 rounds. Notably, both Jonas and Price are southpaws, which could create an interesting tactical battle with unusual angles.
Key events
Price unifies WBC, IBF and WBA 147lb titles!
Lauren Price has added Jonas’ WBC and IBF welterweight titles to her WBA strap to become a unified champion at 147lb. The scores were as wide as expected: 98-93, 100-90 and 98-92. (The Guardian had it 100-90.)
Round 10
Jonas knows she needs a knockout to win and she comes out swinging for the 10th and final round, loading up on her shots in the opening 20 seconds. But Price evades the haymakers and calmly peppers away with counters. What poise and composure! Thirty seconds to go and Price punishes her opponent with a violent right hook. Jonas lands a very hard left hand in the final 10 seconds … her best shot of the night! But it’s far too little, far too late. There’s the bell and it’s a masterclass from Lauren Price, who once the official scores are tallied and announced will surely become a unified welterweight champion.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Jonas 9-10 Price (Jonas 90-100 Price)
Round 9
Jonas takes a tumble to the canvas early in the round but the referee correctly rules it a slip. Price looks fresh as a daisy, picking up right where she left off in the eighth. Jonas wears a look of discouragement, out of ideas as Price continues to bounce punches off her head behind her blurring hand speed. Another round for Price. Two more minutes.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Jonas 9-10 Price (Jonas 81-90 Price)
Round 8
Jonas is trying to pursue Price around the ring but the legs aren’t there and her punches lack snap. Price countering with perfection, and boxing beautifully and beating Jonas to the punch at every exchanges. A different class.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Jonas 9-10 Price (Jonas 72-80 Price)
Round 7
Jonas getting countered to death and Price countinues to outthrow and outland her foe. Another clear Price round. The only remaining drama is whether she can close the show with a knockout. She very well might at the present clip.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Jonas 9-10 Price (Jonas 63-70 Price)
Round 6
Another straightforward round, but Price’s shots are landing flusher now and with a more ominous sense of menace. Jonas eats a left-right combination directly to her nose. Price continues picking apart her opponent from mid-range. This is not a competitive fight. Jonas looking every bit her 40 years while Price operating a peak levels.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Jonas 9-10 Price (Jonas 54-60 Price)
Round 5
More of the same from Price, who is the busier, slicker and more effective fighter. Jonas looks out of her depth, unable to pull the trigger. Price using her excellent footwork to create different lines of attack, further complicating matters for the Liverpudlian. A total shutout bordering on a mismatch as we enter the second half of the scheduled 10 rounds.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Jonas 9-10 Price (Jonas 45-50 Price)
Round 4
More good work from Price, who’s really found a groove. The constant in-and-out movement is creating scoring opportunities and making Jonas look flat-footed. The round ends with a two-way exchange on the inside, but not enough to erase another Price round. Four rounds and eight minutes down and Jonas really hasn’t done much. Speed kills.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Jonas 9-10 Price (Jonas 36-40 Price)
Round 3
Price’s deft hand and foot speed is not allowing Jonas to press her physical advantages. She lands a left hand on the inside before darting out of harm’s way. Price continues to dispense eye-catching flurries of punches. Another right from Price, who is throwing and landing more. Blistering speed. Jonas complains to referee Marcus McDonnell that she was hit on the back of the head but the third man doesn’t react. Another solid round for Price.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Jonas 9-10 Price (Jonas 27-30 Price)
Round 2
Price aggressive from the bell, darting forward again and throwing punches. Jonas calm in retreat, taking measure of her foe. Price the busier fighter in these opening stages. Price lands a right hook upstairs as they meet on the inside. Price catches Jonas with another right hook on the fourth punch of a combo that sends Jonas reeling backwards, but it looks like she lost her balance more than she was hurt. Another round for Price, easier to score than the first.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Jonas 9-10 Price (Jonas 18-20 Price)
Round 1
There’s the bell! The fighters meet in the center of the ring. Jonas opens with a jab to the midsection as Price circles backward into the right, away from her opponent’s lead hand. Price bursts into the pocket and throws a flurry of punches but Jonas eludes them all while moving in reverse. Price lands a right hand through Jonas’s guard. A feeling-out round for both with neither landing anything of great significance, but Price did just enough to take it.
Guardian’s unofficial score: Jonas 9-10 Price (Jonas 9-10 Price)
Here we go. The final instructions have been given by the referee, the seconds are out and we’ll pick it up with round-by-round coverage from here!
It’s time for the main event. The lights have gone down and the ring announcer has taken his position and summoned each fighter. First it’s Lauren Price, the WBA’s welterweight champion. She emerges to a recording of the old Welsh standard Yma o Hyd performed by Corau Meibion and Dafydd Iwan wearing an all black robe with black sequined trim.
Now it’s Jonas, the WBC and IBF champion of the 147lb division, whose entrance is preceded by the poet and spoken word artist Sophia Thakur. Shortly after the Liverpudlian enters the hall to hearty roars wearing a Union Jack-inspired robe with gold trim. She pauses on the platform near the tunnel before Beyoncé’s Run the World (Girls) pipes in from the speakers, the cue for her final approach to the squared circle. Not much longer now.
Tale of the tape
Here’s how the fighters measure up ahead of tonight’s main event. Both Jonas and Price came in safely under the welterweight division limit of 147lb at yesterday’s weigh-in. Jonas comes in with advantages of three inches in reach and two and a half inches in height, which could allow her to control the distance with her jab and prevent her opponent from getting inside. But Price is a decade younger, which could translate to an edge in speed, reflexes and endurance over the course of 10 rounds. Notably, both Jonas and Price are southpaws, which could create an interesting tactical battle with unusual angles.
“It was very rough and tough,” Caroline Dubois says to the in-ring interviewer. “And watching her fights previously with the team, that’s what she did. She just charges in, head down and swing for the rooftops, and she did exactly what I expected.”
Dubois is then asked about her decision to stand and trade with her opponent during the final two rounds rather than play it safe with a lead on the scorecards. Did she give someone a chance that didn’t really have a chance in the fight?
“Maybe,” she says. “But I feel like I need to learn how to fight on the inside. It’s one thing doing it in sparring and stuff, but it’s another thing doing in the ring where, you know, like the crowd, the lights, all you guys, the judges, it’s important to master that there as well. And I tried to do it. I don’t know if I was successful, but I tried.”
The interview then swings to Dubois’ trainer Shane McGuigan, who gives his assessment.
“I thought she was brilliantly for eight rounds,” McGuigan says. “The last couple of rounds, she got dragged in and also lost her face a little bit, but Caroline hasn’t been feeling the best. There’s no excuses. But she hasn’t been feeling the best. She was fighting a bit of a virus for last 10 days. But this is the most amazing experience for her. She was she wanted to be involved in it, and she kept saying, ‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ But maybe in those last four minutes, they were telling.”
Dubois retains WBC 135lb title!
Caroline Dubois has retained her WBC lightweight title by a hard-fought majority decision over Bo Mi Re Shin. After running out to a wide lead on the scorecards, the London southpaw was wobbled by a concussive right hand in the ninth round then pushed to the limit in a grueling 10th. But she made it to the final bell before the ringside judges made it official by scores of 95-95, 98-93 and 98-92.
Donald McRae
Caroline Dubois has made her way to the ring for tonight’s chief support bout. Our ringside correspondent checks in:
The extremely shallow pool of premium talent in women’s boxing is hard to ignore but such nights can only help attract prospective new fighters. As the Albert Hall fills to around 80% of its capacity it feels important to remember that women’s boxing was still banned in Britain in 1998.
I also think British boxing has a clear future star. Caroline Dubois is the most gifted young female fighter in this country and the atmosphere is really starting to build as she prepares to showcase her vast potential against Bo Mi Re Shen, the supposedly tough and resilient South Korean.
One boxer that we regrettably won’t be seeing tonight is Olympic bronze medalist Cindy Ngamba. The 26-year-old from Bolton, whose extraordinary backstory came into a global spotlight last summer, was due to make her professional debut against Kirstie Bavington tonight only for her promoter to announced her withdrawal due to a medical issue.
“Cindy Ngamba will not be making her professional debut on Friday night after a pre-fight medical examination revealed an issue requiring further investigation,” Boxxer said in a statement Thursday. “The health and safety of fighters remains the highest priority, and Cindy will undergo further tests in the coming days.”
At the Paris Games, Ngamba became the first athlete competing as a refugee to earn a medal when she took bronze in the middleweight category.
“I am very disappointed that I will not be able to make my professional debut on Friday as I had worked very hard to be in great shape and was really looking forward to the occasion and boxing at the Royal Albert Hall,” Ngamba said in a statement posted on her social media channels.
On Instagram, Ngamba added her thanks to “all of the people that that have helped and supported me in preparing for this fight”.
Ngamba, who cannot return to her home country of Cameroon because she is gay, has lived in Britain for the past 15 years. She spoke at length to Donald McRae for an interview that ran earlier this week.
Karriss Artingstall has just won a 10-round decision over Raven Chapman to claim the British featherweight title. The Tokyo Olympic bronze medalist from Macclesfield scored a second-round knockdown with a left hand before strolling to a unanimous verdict by scores of 97-92, 98-91 and 96-93.
“I’m just proud of myself for getting back in the ring, if I’m honest,” Artingstall says. “Last year it was an odd one, like I just mentally wasn’t there within myself when I was in the ring. So I’m just mega-proud of myself for even getting in the fight, never mind beating a top-class operator like Raven, getting about along the way and doing my first 10-rounder. So there’s things to work on, of course, but I’m just mega-proud of myself for getting the win and being back in ring.”
Asked who she wants to fight next, Artingstall wastes no time: “I’d love to go back and speak to my team and see what they think next. But I believe [IBF featherweight champion] Nina Meinke’s got a world title. I believe if I can get that off her, then I think it makes for a perfect fight against me and Sky Nicolson.”
Conveniently enough Nicolson, who holds the IBF title at 126lb, is at ringside at the moment doing commentary for Sky Sports.
“I’d love to get that fight at the end of the year, 100%,” adds Artingstall, whose Tokyo bronze came directly at Nicolson’s expense in the quarter-finals. “I think if I get a world title of Nina Meinke, why shouldn’t that happen? I think the fans would love to see give her a chance at getting a revenge from the Olympics. We look forward to it.”
Next up: Caroline Dubois will defend her WBC lightweight title against South Korea’s Bo Mi Re Shin in the co-feature bout. That’s the final action before Jonas and Price make their entrances.
Tonight marks the first night of boxing in four years at the Royal Albert Hall and only the fifth since 1999. But BoxRec’s exhaustive annals show the 154-year-old concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington has a surprisingly rich fistic history, with at least 470 cards staged here down the years going back to 1918 – exactly one month after the end of the first world war.
Speaking of the great man, McRae wrote a piece for Sunday’s Observer on his latest book, The Last Bell: Life, Death and Boxing, out next week and published by Simon and Schuster.
When I was a boy, living in South Africa, I fell for Muhammad Ali. As graceful as he was provocative, Ali amazed me with his uncanny ability, despite apartheid, to entrance black and white South Africans. He made us laugh and dazzled us with his outrageous skill and courage. I have followed boxing ever since, often obsessively, for more than 50 years.
In 1996, after I spent five years tracking Mike Tyson, James Toney, Roy Jones Jr, Chris Eubank Sr and Naseem Hamed, my book Dark Trade allowed me to become a full-time writer. I owe this gift to boxing but our relationship is not easy. Boxing is as crooked and destructive as it is magnificent and transformative.
I have given so much of my life to thinking and writing about giants of the ring, and thousands of lesser fighters who are often as interesting. But even zealots grow weary. For a while my family and work, as well as books, movies and Arsenal, filled my head as much as boxing. There was fleeting freedom from the ring.
Then, in September 2018, my sister, Heather, died shockingly soon after my mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. My father would endure the same diagnosis less than a year later. I lost all three of them – and then my mother-in-law died on the first anniversary of my mother’s death.
I have spent the past six years working on my fifth and probably final book about boxing. More than just a prop amid the grief, I wanted to remember how boxing made me feel so alive. It has always been a bleak and dirty business but, at its best, boxing is like nothing else. It can be as beautiful as it is brutal, as glorious as it is painful.
To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
Donald McRae
Our man at ringside tonight is the inestimable Donald McRae, who’s just checked in with a dispatch from inside the room:
It’s good to be at the Royal Albert Hall on a very different, and significant, night for women’s boxing in the UK. This is a really beautiful venue for boxing – as intimate as it is grand – and it’s currently about two-thirds full. And it’s striking that the crowd features almost as many women as men shouting out their support for the undercard boxers. Some dubious and great fighters have boxed here – including Primo ‘the Ambling Alp’ Carnera, Reggie and Ronnie Kray, Henry Cooper, Muhammad Ali, Frank Bruno, Nigel Benn, Lennox Lewis, Naseem Hamed and Marco Antonio Barrera. It’s great to feel the history – and to look ahead, hopefully, to some decent fights and a really intriguing headline bout between Jonas and Price.
Jasmina Zapotoczna has just won a 10-round split decision over Britain’s Chloe Watson. Two of the ringside judges handed down identical cards of 96-95 in favor of the Poland-born, Yorkshire-based flyweight, overruling a 97-93 score for the Merseysider. Zapotoczna is now the European champion at the 112lb division.
Two more preliminary bouts to go before the main event.
Preamble
Welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of a groundbreaking night of boxing at London’s historic Royal Albert Hall. For the first time, an all-women’s card takes center stage at this storied venue, headlined by a high-stakes welterweight title unification clash between Natasha Jonas and Lauren Price.
Tonight’s main event represents a compelling clash of styles and generations. Jonas (16-2-1, 9 KO), the 40-year-old Merseysider who holds the WBC and IBF titles at welterweight, has defied the odds in the later stages of her career, moving up in weight to claim world titles before dropping back down to 147lb in pursuit of undisputed glory. A crisp counterpuncher with knockout power, Jonas’ experience on the biggest stages could be the deciding factor tonight. But will it be enough to overcome the speed, youth and technical brilliance of her undefeated foe?
Lauren Price (8-0, 2 KO) was one of the faces of British boxing even before seeing off Chicago investment banker Jessica McCaskill last year to win the WBA’s version of the welterweight crown. A Tokyo Olympic gold medalist with a deep amateur pedigree, the 30-year-old Welsh southpaw has made a flying start as a professional, relying on her exceptional speed, ring IQ and fluid movement to overwhelm opponents. Despite her relative inexperience in the paying ranks, Price is a fighter on the fast track and determined to make a statement by dethroning a legend.
Beyond the belts, tonight marks another milestone for women’s boxing. The Royal Albert Hall, steeped in sporting and cultural history, plays host to a night dedicated entirely to female fighters – something unthinkable just a decade ago. With the sport’s rapid growth and an increasing appetite for top-tier women’s bouts, this event is both a celebration and a showcase of the elite talent driving the revolution on the eve of International Women’s Day.
And it’s not just Jonas and Price in the spotlight. In the co-feature bout, rising star Caroline Dubois defends her WBC lightweight title, further adding to the significance of the occasion.
The main event ringwalks are expected around 10pm local. Stay with us for round-by-round updates, analysis and reaction.
Bryan will be here shortly. In the meantime here’s a look at tonight’s headliners in action at the media workouts earlier this week.
How to watch or stream Natasha Jonas v Lauren Price
The Guardian will have round-by-round updates, analysis and instant reaction in this space.
In the UK, Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Action will broadcast the card. Subscribers can use the Sky Go app on compatible devices. The main event ringwalks are expected around 10pm GMT.
In the US, the card will be carried on TrillerTV+. The main event ringwalks are expected around 5pm ET.
