Boxing is as full of bravado and posturing as any sport. But in private moments, waiting alone to fight, all that gets stripped away.
The Karriss Artingstall of today is a formidable fighter, an Olympic bronze medallist and a rising force in the professional featherweight division.
But she wasn’t always like that. When Artingstall started boxing, fear was her overriding emotion.
“I think I had my first bout when I was just 16. I was terrified, cried in the changing rooms, refused to go out,” she told Sky Sports.
“I was crying at home, weeks before my fight. My mum was like: ‘What are you doing it for?’ I couldn’t even eat my food.”
But, despite the fear, she went through with it. “I got in there and I got the job done. I won my first nine fights,” Artingstall said.
Boxing and the military would prove to be defining influences on Artingstall’s life.
“I was a wild child. Always in trouble. Every other week police knocking on the door. My brothers having to collect me from the overnight prison cell. In and out of trouble at school. Expelled from three of them,” she said.
“Ended up in a non-mainstream school. There were about eight of us,” Artingstall continued. “All had troubles in school and what not and that’s where we ended up. On a Friday they used to go down to Macclesfield Boys boxing gym and we’d spend an hour and a half there, two hours and that was our PE lesson. That’s how I initially got into boxing.”
The coach at Macclesfield had seen Artingstall’s potential in the sport. But she paused her boxing initially to join the British Army, though she would eventually join their boxing squad.
“I don’t even know what made me join the army. No one directed me down that path. My mum didn’t really want me to do it,” she recalled. “I needed to be hands on.
Artingstall is an Olympic bronze medallist, but that accolade is still the source of mixed emotions
“I just wanted to be active and I couldn’t picture myself sitting in an office.”
Military culture came as a shock to someone who had been a tearaway, a “class clown” by her own account. She’d been thrown out of schools for talking back, for fighting. The army, of course, expected complete discipline.
“Maybe I was embarrassed because I wasn’t very good at education. So if it was maths or something and I couldn’t understand it, I’d just play up instead. Lock the teachers out the room or something,” she said.
“I was getting in trouble, for fighting, with the police and even stealing from the shops.”
When she joined the Royal Artillery, Artingstall did change. “It was hard to start with but they break you down to build you back up,” she said.
“They put me through my paces. If I backchatted they’d get in your face and scream and send you on these mad runs up and down with all your kit on. It was hard work but I enjoyed it in a weird way. I think because it was challenging me.”
Artingstall continued: “That’s what’s moulded me into the disciplined, courageous person I am now, I suppose. It was definitely hard to start with. It was because I really wanted to do it and I enjoyed it, that’s what made me learn to change my attitude.
“It moulded me into a good person as well. It does tie into the boxing side as well. You’ve got to be brave with boxing. You’ve got to be disciplined.
“They do tie into together in their own little ways. It’s broken me down from all the bad attitude.
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Karriss Artingstall’s impressive start to her professional career continues as she stops Vanessa Bradford in just two rounds!
“It’s proper sorted me out I think, boxing and the Army.”
She became the first British Army boxer to reach an Olympic podium. Artingstall beat Skye Nicolson in the quarter-finals of the Tokyo Games and pushed eventual champion Sena Irie close in their semi-final. That bronze medal is still the source of mixed emotions for her.
“I have my days where I’m proud of it, I have my days where I’m disappointed with it,” Artingstall said. “It’s hard to even qualify for the Olympics, let alone medal in, but that’s not good enough for me.
“I know what I’m capable of doing and I know what I want to achieve.”
In the professional sport she is determined to go all the way to the top. She wants to win a world title, and she wants to win it against the best.
“If Amanda [Serrano] retires by the time I get there and they’re all vacated and I just box someone that’s not the opposition that I had to face to get into the Olympics and to get a medal, then it’s not going to mean as much to me as an Olympic medal,” she said.
“But if I have to face someone like Amanda Serrano then it’s a different story.”
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Two-weight world champion Natasha Jonas goes face-to-face with Mikaela Mayer as she prepares to defend her IBF welterweight title in her hometown of Liverpool on Saturday, live on Sky Sports
It’s Artingstall’s mindset ultimately to target the summit of the sport.
“I’d like a world title shot this year. I’ve got to earn my spot for it, I suppose, so I just need to keep fighting people that are ranked above me,” she said.
Her next step up comes against Brazil’s Lila Furtado on the undercard of Saturday’s Natasha Jonas vs Mikaela Mayer world title fight, live on Sky Sports.
“This is the year that I should be knocking on the door for a world title realistically, I believe,” she said.
“Whether it’s one or two more fights that will put me in that sort of position, that’s what I’m aiming for.”
Watch Natasha Jonas vs Mikaela Mayer live on Sky Sports Arena at 7pm and Sky Sports Main Event at 8pm this Saturday. Stream boxing on Sky Sports with NOW
