BBBoC Awards: Natasha Jonas is the first woman in history to receive the British Boxer of the Year Award from the British Boxing Board of Control.
It was yet another ground-breaking event for the Liverpool star, celebrating everything that she had accomplished throughout the exceptional year that Jonas had in 2022.
Jonas became the first woman in British boxing history to receive the award, which is given to the best fighter in the nation for the year at any weight class.
She is following in the footsteps of a few British boxing superstars by earning this award. Lennox Lewis, Barry McGuigan, Nigel Benn, Naseem Hamed, Joe Calzaghe, Ricky Hatton, Anthony Joshua, and other athletes have won before.
Jonas moved up three weight classes in 2022 after becoming the first British woman to qualify for an Olympics ten years prior. In a stunning knockout victory over Chris Namus in her opening contest at 154 pounds, she captured the WBO super-welterweight title.
In her subsequent contest, she defeated Patricia Berghult to win the WBC title, unifying the world titles.
She defeated two-time world champion Marie-Eve Dicaire to win her third straight world title match and add the IBF title to her collection in the same calendar year.
The 2022 British Boxer of the Year title was up for nomination by a plethora of other champions.
They were: Chantelle Cameron, the current undisputed super-lightweight champion; Sunny Edwards, the current IBF flyweight champion; Joe Cordina, an unbeaten Welshman who defeated Kenichi Ogawa to win the IBF super-featherweight title; Leigh Wood, who successfully defended his WBA featherweight title against Michael Conlan; and marauding heavyweight contender Joe Joyce.
“You’re eternally in the history books,” Jonas remarked afterwards. “Last year, I simply seized the possibilities as they presented themselves, and things worked out for me. Of course, I worked diligently to ensure that everything went my way.
All the little girls out there, this is for you. Not only in 2022, either. My life has been devoted to this for the past 18 years.
The Board’s Overseas Boxer of the Year was American superstar Claressa Shields. In a ground-breaking main event at the O2 Arena in 2022, she defeated Savannah Marshall to win the title of undisputed middleweight champion.
“By selecting me as the international fighter of the year, I would like to express my gratitude to the BBBoC. I’m just really overjoyed and grateful,” said Shields. “It means everything to me to know that you guys even considered me for this honour, to be able to go and pack the O2 Arena with 20,000 supporters, 2 million viewers, and 6 million people globally, and to defeat Savannah Marshall.”
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