‘How do I survive?’: Aussie boxing champ’s plea for help in new I Catch Killers podcast
Super-lightweight boxing champion Ella Boot should have the world at her feet but is up against some frustrating challenges. Listen to her story on Gary Jubelin’s latest podcast.
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Super-lightweight boxing champion Ella Boot could be Australia’s next world beater – but a lack of sponsors in the women’s sport means she struggles to earn a weekly wage.
“It’s quite challenging,” Boot told Gary Jubelin on the I Catch Killers podcast.
“I’ve currently got a few really good sponsors that are helping. They give me a wage per fight, which is good, but if I don’t fight for six months, how do I survive?”
The increasing attention on women's’ sport following the Matilda’s run at last year’s soccer World Cup has shone a spotlight on the differences between what male and female athletes get paid.
Male boxers can make millions. Boot dropped out of university to train and is currently juggling paid work and boxing practice.
“I’m not a very good employee because I’m always asking people to cover my shifts so I can go to training,” she said.
The 24-year-old is undefeated as a professional, with her most recent win coming last November in Sydney against New Zealand’s Mackenzie Jean.
She is now running short of opponents willing to challenge her within Australia, saying: “It’s been really difficult getting fights”.
“I’ve had quite a few pull out, which has been quite frustrating,” Boot said.
“Women’s boxing is not huge in the professional ranks. So there’s not a big pool of female fighters, especially at my weight.”
Working with the legendary trainer Johnny Lewis, Boot now intends to go overseas and find opponents.
“I really want to prove to myself,’ Boot said. ‘Boxing is my dream – this is literally what I’m here for.”
Lewis believes she can achieve the same as several of his previous boxers, including Jeff Fenech and Kostya Tszyu, by one day winning a world title.
Finding a sponsor who can back her as she sets out on that journey could make all the difference.
Looking back at where she’s come from, Boot’s father Jeff said she has everything else she needs to compete at the highest level.
Ella wanted to go to the Olympics as a teenager, he said, after winning multiple Australian titles in karate.
At the time, Karate was not an Olympic sport, so Boot switched to boxing aged 16.
After months of backyard training with her father, she qualified for the Australian team and competed internationally.
Boot won 39 out of 45 fights as an amateur, becoming a three-times Australian champion and also picking up a Commonwealth Games gold medal.
“Ella looks at it more like a game of chess,” her father Jeff said.
“It’s about the moves, not brute force. Boxing is an art”.
Lewis, 79, said working with Boot helped him feel young again, after a long career that has seen him inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
“I’m very proud of Ella,”he said.
“She never talks up her skills – she doesn’t believe it all that. She lets her fists do the talking.”
Listen to the full interview on the I Catch Killers podcast
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Originally published as ‘How do I survive?’: Aussie boxing champ’s plea for help in new I Catch Killers podcast
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