A Cambridge University graduate who was born in Nottingham and now lives and trains in China, Boutell first moved to Beijing as a teenager to live with her father after what she describes as a difficult adolescence in the UK.
“Like a lot of kids, I wasn’t sure about my place in the world and I used to act out a lot,” she told BBC World Service’s More Than The Score podcast on Tuesday.
“Looking back, I was just under-stimulated. I didn’t find school challenging and I had lots of excess energy that ended up in not great behaviour.”
Bouttell says her “behaviour problems disappeared”, though she admits she still longed for familiar comforts. “I missed Greggs,” she adds.
Her love of the Chinese language earned her a place at Cambridge, where she initially focused on powerlifting before discovering boxing in her final year.
After graduating, Boutell returned to China to teach English and settled in Shanghai. There, she met the coach who now trains her professionally and entered white-collar boxing.
Bouttell turned professional and has fought seven times in China and once in Thailand.
Having only competed a handful of times in the UK as an amateur, Bouttell is looking forward to her “homecoming” bout.
“This will be the first fight my family have seen,” she says. “My brothers will be able to watch me fight for the first time.”
