New sport aged 35. World title within eight fights. The first UFC fighter to win a boxing world title. Headline at Goodison Park.<\/b><\/p>\n
For Molly ‘Meatball’ McCann, all the above is on her hit list. On Saturday she steps into the boxing ring for the first time as a professional, six months after she retired from MMA and 16 years after she last boxed.<\/p>\n
McCann was a promising amateur before switching to MMA, winning an ABA title.<\/p>\n
The odds are stacked against McCann but she is used to that. Her naysayers were often louder than her supporters during her UFC career.<\/p>\n
“Since I was a little girl, my dream was to be a world champion in boxing,” she says.<\/p>\n
“I’m not here to believe people can put down my dreams and ambitions and what I want to be.<\/p>\n
“I kind of let that happen in the MMA world and now it’s time to take back who little Molly was and why she started fighting.”<\/p>\n
McCann’s training base is at No Limits Boxing Gym in Liverpool. Her interview with BBC Sport takes place moments after a session, in a little room upstairs with a shower in the corner.<\/p>\n
As it gets started, McCann leaves for a moment to ask the gym floor to keep the noise down. They oblige.<\/p>\n
Despite never reaching the very top of the UFC title mountain, McCann retired as the most famous female MMA fighter the UK has ever produced.<\/p>\n
With performance and sponsorship bonuses included, she earned upwards of \u00a350,000 for her last UFC fights.<\/p>\n
While women’s boxing has boomed in the last five years, MMA was one of the few places female athletes could earn as much as their male counterparts.<\/p>\n
Some might think money is the motivation for McCann’s latest move.<\/p>\n
Ex-UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou earned millions more than his best UFC pay day when he crossed into boxing in 2023.<\/p>\n
But for McCann, that is not the case.<\/p>\n
“That’s not the reason. I’m sure the money will come,” McCann says.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think people should be in combat sport just to make money.<\/p>\n
“I think it’s very dangerous. I’m taking a big cut to come to boxing because I wanted to do it and I love it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New sport aged 35. World title within eight fights. The first UFC fighter to win a boxing world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4108],"tags":[1935,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-407572","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115168208707485062","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}