Lauren Price and Karriss Artingstall both believe they can be in contention for world titles within 18 months after the Olympic golden couple announcing they will be turning professional with BOXXER and Sky Sports.
Price, who won middleweight gold in Tokyo, where Artingstall won featherweight bronze, said they had a stack of offers, some life-changing before picking BOXXER.
Price will make her debut in early May, while Artingstall will be on a show in Manchester in June.
The pair, who are a real-life couple, have not boxed since Tokyo and Artingstall said that she had initially considered remaining amateur for the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this summer. Price, though, who won Olympic, world and Commonwealth Games gold as an amateur said the decision was a “no-brainer”.
“It feels like a while since Tokyo but over the last four years and the cycle we have been on, we needed that break to step away from boxing, being in Sheffield full-time and the extra year added on with Covid,” Price said. “It was good to come away for Tokyo and experience the limelight. We were at different events, the GQ Awards and stuff, it was good to experience that and we went away on holiday and had some downtime.”
But she said both had soon tired of the celebrity lifestyle.
“After about three months we got a bit sick of it, we wanted to get back in shape,” Price said. “We’d put on a bit of weight and just wanted to get back in the gym and look in trim again.
“I’ve won gold at every major so for me it was a no-brainer. From the age of eight, my dream was to go to the Olympic Games. I achieved that I needed a new goal.”
Price has a win over Savannah Marshall on her record but will be boxing as a welterweight as a professional.
“I’m tiny for middleweight,” Price said. “Back when I started on the amateur scene, welterweight wasn’t about and I got ranked at middleweight, then I won a few medals and became world No 1, so it made sense to stay there. In the pros, I will be moving down to welterweight.
“I have been on the scene with Savannah and Clarissa (Shields) and what they have done, putting it on the map, in 2012 and Rio and now the standard just gets better and better. Savannah headlining shows is not just great for women’s boxing, it’s great for women’s sport.
“Me and Sav really get on and right now we are in two different weight classes. It’s not something I have thought about. I am just going to concentrate on my lane.
“Even though we have the amateur background, being a professional is something else. Obviously, we are going to go a bit quicker, but I am just looking to take a little step forward each time. 14-18 months is realistic.”
Artingstall sees herself on the same timescale but says she needs to learn the ropes as a pro.
“I know it’s the same sport, but we do need to mold into a professional fighter,” Artingstall said. “I want to step up every fight I have and it is down to how well I step up. I think it will be relatively quick.
“I am going to debut at featherweight, but might move down to super-bantamweight.
“I’d say it is a bit busier at super-bantam than feather for me, so I will see where I fit in. I watch pretty much every boxing show that is aired so I know pretty much all the female fighters that are around.
“In my head I was always going to the Commonwealth Games, but I didn’t realise how big women’s boxing is growing in the professionals. I obviously medalled and then everyone kind of jumped at us, promoters, managers, people we hadn’t even heard of before just messaged us.
“That’s when we decided to sit down and have a proper conversation, because we are both 27 and I don’t want to be old and grey staying in the sport. The offers we were getting, some of them were life-changing, so we started having a proper think about it.”
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 – covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.