Nina Hughes calls her first fight with Cherneka Johnson “controversial” – but likely not for the reason you think.
Last March at RAC Arena in Perth, Australia, Hughes traveled halfway across the world to defend her bantamweight women’s title against Melbourne’s Johnson, a naturally bigger fighter challenging for the belt more or less in her own backyard. However those factors may have skewed the fight odds was someone else’s problem. Hughes had long since stopped listening to what the probabilities told her.
The fight was tightly contested between the more active Hughes and the bigger-punching Johnson, and when 10 rounds had ended with both fighters still on their feet, the RAC sat rapt waiting for the announcement of the winner. When the word was delivered, it came from the mouth of ring announcer Dan Hennessey: a narrow majority decision – by scores of 95-95, 96-94 and 98-92 had gone to … Hughes.
Smiling and pumping a hand in the air upon hearing Hennessey intone “and still,” Hughes quickly embraced Johnson and was lifted up by her cornerman in triumph. But within seconds of being returned to the canvas, Hughes learned, as Hennessey took to the mic again and gathered the fighters to re-announce the scores, that the wrong winner had been declared. Turns out the judges had actually seen it for Johnson. Hennessey got it wrong.
And – sakes alive! – did he hear about it. From the decidedly pro-Johnson crowd, a mixture of cheers, confusion and boos cascaded throughout the arena. ESPN announcer Joe Tessitore ripped Hennessey, calling the spectacle “a clown show” and “garbage.” Boxing Twitter was set ablaze. Journalists piled on in the days after. Back in the ring, Johnson appeared bewildered. Hughes was incensed.
But the object of her ire wasn’t Hennessey.
“It was definitely controversial,” Hughes said of the fight. “Obviously, with what happened, they announced that I won and then turned it, but as far as I’m concerned, it was more how the judges scored it.”
Hughes, of Essex, UK, says she “clearly won” the first couple of rounds, and there is some evidence to support her case. (CompuBox, which alone isn’t an accurate measure, indicated Hughes outlanded Johnson in each of the first two rounds but was only awarded three of the available six rounds on the scorecards.)
“It was definitely, let’s give it to the home girl,” Hughes said of the officials’ scoring.
Team Hughes felt strongly enough about the assertion that it appealed the World Boxing Association (WBA), which apparently thought Hughes had enough grounds for a case.
“The WBA got neutral judges from all around the world to rejudge my fight, and the majority had me winning,” she said. “That’s why I’ve been made mandatory for the rematch.”
Hughes has already set up camp in hostile territory, readying for Saturday’s rematch with Johnson at Qudos Bank Arena in Sydney Olympic Park, back in the Land of Oz. Is she concerned about returning to what she considers the scene of the crime and putting herself in position to be victimized again by less-than-impartial parties?
“Of course!” she said. “I’m coming back to her hometown again, her home country. But that side of things, you take it out of my hands. I mean, it happens all the time in boxing. I’ve just got to focus on myself and putting on the best performance I can, making it a dominant performance. And, yeah, what will be will be.”
If Hughes seems to have a devil-may-care attitude toward matchmaking, it’s because she hasn’t come this far by playing it safe. And it’s not like she has time to lose. Hughes, 6-1 (2 KOs), is a 42-year-old single mother of two who didn’t start boxing until age 25 after being introduced to the sport through a fitness class through a friend. Over time, her instructor saw something in Hughes and kept pestering her to let him train her properly. I couldn’t do that in front of all them people, Hughes thought. But the coach persisted and, eventually, Hughes relented.
“So my friend stopped, and I was the only one that carried on.” Hughes said. “I started sparring the boys, and they was all beating me up. And my coach was like, ‘You’re ready to box!’ And I’m thinking, how am I ready to box?”
But she was ready, and when matched with women of her experience level, she thrived. “I thought maybe I’ll just try it once, and I had my first amateur fight, and I won that,” Hughes said. “And, yeah, then things moved really quickly.”
She won a national title. Got selected to the first-ever women’s Great Britain boxing team. Competed in the 2012 Olympics, traveled the world and gained more experience. Then, suddenly – and with good reason – Hughes stopped.
“I had my kids,” she said. “After my first kid, I put on loads of weight, and I was like, ‘Get yourself back in the gym to try and lose the weight.’ So I started training again – but purely just to lose the weight. And I thought, I’ll set myself a target. I’m gonna have one amateur bout and that’ll do it.”
But that led to a revelation: Hughes had fallen back in love with the sport. It thrilled her, satiating her competitive edge. She kept at it, won another national title and figured she would stick with it one more year in nationals. She had two young boys at home – Leo and Caelan – and was parenting on her own. Boxing is a young woman’s game, and she was in her late 30s. Then, as it did for so many, the pandemic came along and turned her world upside down.
“It was during lockdown that they started televising a lot of the female professional fights in the UK, right?” she said. “And, yeah, I was watching these girls on the TV, and I was thinking, I could still beat them. I could still do this. And it had never really interested me before, turning professional, because of the business side of things. It’s silly, having to sell tickets, and it is hard. People don’t realize that side of things. But I was thinking that If I don’t give it a go, I’ll probably regret it for the rest of my life. And I thought, I am 38 and it’s going to be difficult, but if I try and I don’t get anywhere, then at least I know I’ve tried.”
Hughes turned pro at York Hall in Bethnal Green, UK, in December 2021, outpointing Klaudia Ferenczi. So she tried again. And won. Tried again, won again. Hughes earned a Commonwealth junior featherweight title in November 2022 in just her third pro fight, then defended it against Flora Machela in a small show at Civic Hall in Greys, UK, with young Leo carrying the belt on her ring walk. He wasn’t able to be there when Hughes won her world title barely a month later, a unanimous decision over Jamie Mitchell in Dubai. But he was back on belt duty – and wide-eyed at London’s Wembley Arena in June 2023 – when mom defended it with a decisive points win over Katie Healy.
When Hughes next fought, facing Johnson in Perth, the boys had to remain back home in Billericay. Same goes for Sunday’s fight. As much as Hughes hates being apart from her sons, the long flights, the two weeks out of school and the attention they require on the road made bringing them along impossible. She’s grateful to her parents for looking after the boys while she focuses on not just winning a fight but righting a wrong. Next time, Caelan wants to walk the belt into the ring by mom’s side.
“It’s hard being away from them so long,” Hughes said. “It’s like they begged. They didn’t want me to go. They’re like, ‘Can’t you box in this country?’ It makes it even harder. But I know they’ll be proud of me, and it gives me even more fire in my belly to get that win, to make them proud. I don’t want to lose, for them. So it gives me that extra motivation, if anything, when I’ve got to be away from my kids for two weeks. I’ve got to make it worth it.”
When will Hughes have had enough, her competitive edge finally satisfied? Whether or not her hand is raised again – this time for real – after facing Johnson, 16-2 (6 KOs), in Saturday’s rematch, how much longer does Hughes expect the ring to keep calling her back?
“These people that started boxing as kids, obviously they’ve got the same miles on the clock,” she said. “They might be young still, but they’ve got the same miles on the clock as I have. If I had started as a kid, I wouldn’t be boxing at this age. But I do feel like because I had started late, I do still feel fresh.
“Obviously, I’m not going to go on forever. I won’t be fighting at 50 – definitely not. But, yeah, we’ll have to see the opportunities, see what options I can get and see the road ahead.”
Jason Langendorf is the former Boxing Editor of ESPN.com, was a contributor to Ringside Seat and the Queensberry Rules, and has written about boxing for Vice, The Guardian, Chicago Sun-Times and other publications. A member of the Boxing Writers Association of America, he can be found at LinkedIn and followed on X and Bluesky.