Price walked out first, in all black, to a chorus of boos. Then the Welsh folk song “Yma o Hyd” came over the sound system and drowned them out.
That was the start of a night at the Royal Albert Hall on 7 March 2025 that ended with Lauren Price as a unified world champion. She outpointed Natasha Jonas over ten rounds, keeping her WBA title and taking Jonas’ WBC and IBF belts. The judges had it 98-93, 100-90 and 98-92.
The BBC said the 5,272-capacity hall, which has hosted British boxing since 1918, was about 80% full. The crowd split fairly evenly between men and women. Among them were footballer Nikita Parris, Jonas’ sister, with some of her England team-mates, and TV presenters Romesh Ranganathan and Stacey Dooley.
Speed against experience
Price, 30, was in just her ninth pro fight. Jonas, 40, from Liverpool, was the first British woman to box at an Olympics and came in to Emeli Sande and Beyonce. Her trainer Joe Gallagher had spent the dressing room time drilling her on how to handle Price’s bursts of punches. It did not help much.
By the second, Jonas was on the ropes, caught by a counter left and then stumbling under a right. Price bounced on her toes while Jonas missed wildly. Jonas let her hands go in the fifth, but a right hand in the seventh sent her head spinning. “You’ve got to throw some punches, love,” Gallagher told her. By then it was too late.
Fans in the second tier and the gallery watched Jonas go down in the ninth after a slip. Price kept picking her apart to the last seconds.
After the bell
Jonas, a two-weight world champion, lost for the third time in 19 pro bouts and hinted she might stop. “It’s something I’ll look at when I go home,” she said. “Right now I’m going to go home and spend some time with my daughter.”
Price asked for an undisputed title shot against the winner of the fight between WBO champion Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan, due later that month. “Tash is one of the best in the division, I honestly believe I can become undisputed. I want to go on and create a great legacy,” she said. She had become Wales’ first female world champion by beating Jessica McCaskill less than a year earlier. “I want to follow in the footsteps of Katie Taylor,” Price added. “I’m Welsh, I’m an Olympic champion, I’ve got a nation behind me.”
