Championship professional boxing made a successful return to Middlesbrough for the first time in almost 30 years
16:47, 22 Jun 2026Updated 16:58, 22 Jun 2026
New Commonwealth champion Jade Pearce alongside dad and head trainer John Pearce(Image: Graeme Blackburn)
Middlesbrough boxing star Jade Pearce made history in Eston on Saturday evening as she won the super featherweight Commonwealth title.
Pearce defeated York-born Kirsty Hill via a unanimous decision to capture the title. She becomes Middlesbrough ’s first ever female pro boxing champion, and the town’s first major belt holder since 2009.
A commanding winner by judges scores of 100-90, 99-92 and 98-92, Pearce is Middlesbrough’s first boxing champion since Paul Truscott held the same strap until January 2009.
The title win comes in just the 29-year-old’s fifth professional fight, after she previously beat belt-holder Hill in a non-title contest. It has extra significance for Pearce, who didn’t start boxing until the age of 18.
That is because her dad John, who is now also her head trainer, had tried to steer her away from boxing and into other sports. But Pearce was keen to emulate her father, who himself was a standout boxing champion at the renowned Wellington ABC gym, where he’s now head coach.
Though John never went professional, he was a standout amateur boxer who won gold for England in the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, with Jade speaking before the fight about the pride she’d feel in emulating her father by winning a Commonwealth title.
The Carl Greaves-managed star has lofty ambitions in the sport and hopes this first title win will be just the start, as she targets world honours eventually.
The win moved her to number one in the women’s super feather British rankings, while she climbed to 12th in the world rankings.
Her win came on the Shamrock Promotions show at Eston Leisure Centre, with her title fight also the first to be hosted in the town for 27 years.
Also on the card, Redcar star and former English champion Bobby Dalton returned to winning ways.
Dalton won every round of his comeback fight against Argentina’s Ezequiel Gregores as he looks to get back into title contention in the near future, having lost his English strap to Joel Kodua last November.
Fellow Redcar prospect Ben Jarvis was also victorious earlier in the night as he won his four-round professional debut against Edgar Sniedze.