The Women Who Want to Fight

Twenty-one years ago, at university, I landed a beautiful left hook on my friend. I was supposed to miss. We were rehearsing for a production of Fifteen-Minute Hamlet, and we hadn’t measured the distance correctly. I started kickboxing; my friend took up yoga.

My first proper spar was soon after that incident; my most recent was last week. I’ve kept coming back through the exhaustion, the nerves, the bloody noses and the black eyes. I often say it’s the worst sport in the world, but I haven’t been able to live without it.

So let me talk about women who fight, and let’s make space for them. I don’t mean the women who try sparring or tick a fight off their bucket list; there’s something brave in that too. But I mean the women who keep coming back, through the self-doubt, the subtle misogyny and then the unsubtle misogyny. The making weight!

I’ve had five fights in Thailand. Before my first, I walked through town and saw my picture on an advertising truck: “Lady Thai Boxing tonight.” I remember thinking, what are you doing, Lily? I was 19. I wasn’t fearless; I was shit scared.

Eight years later, I went back to Thailand for my last fight there. It was at a police station near Surat Thani, in the middle of nowhere. There weren’t even any toilets. Just before I went on, my coach said, “Lily, whatever happens tonight, we’re proud of you.”

Great. Thanks.

I looked across the ring. My opponent had short hair, a mongkhon around her head and pra jiad on her arms. What are you doing, Lily?

By the fifth round, my coaches were waving their hands at me. Were they telling me to press on or pull back? Those are very different instructions when you’re in the ring. They were telling me to pull back. I was up on points and only needed to do enough to win. Pressing on could have landed me in trouble—or got me knocked out. I couldn’t tell you what I did, I don’t remember, but I won. Afterwards, I discovered my opponent was quite a big deal in the Thai Boxing world, with more than 90 fights under her belt. I liked that feeling.

It doesn’t always go like that. I had a K-1 title fight in Hastings against a woman who was five foot nine, wonderful, and went on to do great things. The fight was stopped in the second round. I felt humiliated.

At 29 I met John, dropped the kicking and took up boxing. He has been in every corner of mine since. He wants me to fight forever. He has always been, and always will be, one of the biggest advocates for female boxing I know, and one of the main reasons I’m where I am.

For the next 10 years, I fought unlicensed. I got stronger. I got better. I had opponent after opponent pull out. With every fight came the nerves — unbearable at times. They never went away. 

Then Covid came. Kids came. Port O’ Leith Boxing Club came. Life changed. But one thing didn’t. I still wanted to fight.

At 39, I had my first amateur fight at the Boxing Alliance Nationals. I was the oldest competitor by quite some way, and it was my first chance to fight in the amateur league. It meant a great deal. Standing by the ring, I saw my opponent: in great shape, from a great gym with great trainers. What are you doing, Lily? John didn’t flinch. He looked at my opponent, then back at me, and said, “Remember, you’re Lily Priggs.” And in I went.

It meant a lot to win that fight. Like a reward for the blood, sweat and tears John and I had put into building the gym. It was the peak of our teamwork: a win that was ours, for us.

At 41, I know my fighting days are coming to an end. But I’m not ready to walk away from the challenge. I’m now learning to box as a southpaw. There’s a new problem to solve, new work to do, and another reason to keep fighting. John is thrilled… genuinely.

I asked our coaches, Ali, Kez and Ana, to find out why the people who know them best think they like fighting. I asked the people who know me, too. Our friends’ answers mainly came down to three things.

Purpose and challenge. A fight gives training a target and keeps us focused. We enjoy competing and putting our skills to the test, knowing there’s always more to learn. None of us is looking to hurt someone; we like the rules.

Feeling alive. Adrenaline, freedom, a release of energy: the controlled rush of trusting our bodies under pressure. We feel strong and completely present. We learn to stay calm, adapt when things go wrong and keep going. We trust our resilience. We feel alive.

Belief and connection. Boxing can look lonely when you’re the only one in the ring. But look at corner teams during fight night. They’re thinking of nothing but you, their fighter. They scream, bang on the ring and have every faith that you’ll win. If you don’t win, they’ll be there to pick you back up. People push you through training, back you on fight night and admire the courage it took to get there. Your fellow fighters understand something about you that can be hard to explain to anyone else. It’s a small club, a tough club, but a very supportive one.

And there’s a fourth. We’re good at it. We’re good at fighting.

Sparring partners have a special connection. We hurt each other to make each other better. I like my injuries. A black eye or split lip remind me that I’m tough; they feel like evidence of who I am. The only part I dislike is knowing I got caught because I failed to slip or block a punch. A heavy shot landing gives me fire, and a sense of pride in the person who landed it. It’s weird. “Nice shot,” I’ll say. A compliment, and a warning.

Is wanting to fight something we’re born with, or something we learn? Perhaps we would have found our way into a ring whatever our circumstances. Perhaps growing up with fewer chances to spar or compete made me more determined. Or perhaps I liked being different: good at something outside what was expected of me, something quite cool.

I’ve had bad experiences in gyms. In Thai Boxing, we clinch—essentially holding onto someone’s neck whilst standing, to throw them to the ground, or chuck in a knee. No one could beat me in the clinch. One day they put me in with this guy—he put all his weight on me and pushed me down. I couldn’t breathe. What a win for him. But I came back.

Nature or nurture? I don’t know. I’m not sure I care. I’m more interested in making room for women to fight on their own terms.

Take the new wave of fighters, some of them wearing beautiful underwear at weigh-ins. It’s not my cup of tea but these women have worked hard to build bodies that can fight. Perhaps the attention brings more money, sponsorship or spectators. Either way, when the weigh-in is over, they’re still climbing through those ropes.

I feel similarly about trash talk: it’s not for me, though perhaps it sells fights. Katie Taylor is my hero. I admire the way she lets her boxing speak for her. Taylor and Amanda Serrano showed what their fighting could draw in 2022: theirs became the first women’s boxing match to headline Madison Square Garden. Their third meeting in 2025 headlined an all-women’s card there and drew nearly six million viewers worldwide on Netflix, no trash talk necessary.

In our gym, we work hard to be inclusive of girls and women at different stages of their lives: in who the coaches are, how they teach, how they behave and the programmes we choose to run. But what about the girls and women who need to fight? The ones who would find focus in it, feel alive doing it, and could go on to compete at national and international level? More pathways are opening for them now. I want us to find those girls and women; give them the opportunity to fight and see how far they can go. I’m all in.

Twenty-one years ago, I punched my friend in the face by accident. She didn’t like it. Now I want to find and nurture the girls and women who’d take that punch and come back for another round.