Fran Hennessy: Rising boxing star thankful for 'love and support' after social media video goes viral

Rising British boxing star Fran Hennessy admits she has been “overwhelmed” by reaction to the video about her struggles with body image as a youngster which has gone viral on social media.

The 20-year-old, who is unbeaten in her first six professional fights and is targeting a future world title bout, posted the video on her social channels which starts with her learning to skip as a child and ends with clips from her intense boxing workouts as an adult.

The video has been viewed 1.2m times on Hennessy’s Instagram account alone.

“I was overwhelmed with the love and support it got. I never imagined it would be that big and I’m just blessed to have got that love and support,” Hennessy told Sky Sports.

“My dad was telling me for about two months to put it up and I was a bit nervous because the young insecure girl in me was thinking ‘I don’t want people to see me overweight, stomping when I’m skipping’ but I’m so grateful I did because so many young kids, parents have been commenting saying how much it’s helped their young kids.

“I even had a young kid come up to me the other day with a rope showing me how many skips she had learnt to do.

“I was just amazed by the love and support and I’m so grateful to be in the position I’m in.”

Hennessy is now heading to the Houses of Parliament on Tuesday to speak about the positive impact boxing can have on the lives of young people.

“Boxing has helped me massively. I wouldn’t be where I am in now without boxing, I don’t know what I’d be doing,” she said.

“I was heavily dyslexic at school and found it very hard to concentrate in a classroom and now I’m going to Parliament to talk about what we can do for young kids in school.

“I had an amazing upbringing; I had support from my parents – some young kids don’t have that and it’s about putting that in place helping them believe they can achieve whatever they want to achieve, whether that’s in sport or anything else.”

Hennessy won her most recent fight against Gemma Ruegg at the Royal Albert Hall in March, dominating on the way to an 80-72 points win over eight rounds.

‘She deserved a lot better than that’ – Hennessy wants to see Marshall-Green rematch

Last weekend Hennessy was on the other side of the ropes at Madison Square Garden in New York to watch Katie Taylor seal a majority decision win over Amanda Serrano in their trilogy bout.

“It was amazing from Katie Taylor,” said Hennessy.

“Both Amanda Serrano and Katie have had three great fights and fair play to both of them, but Katie cemented her legacy the other day and it was just amazing to see.”

The card included the returning Savannah Marshall, who controversially lost on split decision to Shadasia Green. Marshall disputed the judges’ scoring – as did Hennessy.

“To be honest, I thought Savannah won the fight,” she said.

“After two years out, to do that I thought was brilliant. And the judges, I don’t know how on Earth you gave Savannah two rounds but I just think it was disgusting and she deserved a lot better than that. I believe they need to rerun the rematch.”

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