The boxing world is mourning the death of Georgia O’Connor, a celebrated rising star who passed away this week after losing her battle with cancer. She was 25.
“Loved, respected, and admired” by all who knew her, O’Connor was a force in the ring to be reckoned with, her promoter said in a statement announcing news of her death.
“Georgia was loved, respected and admired by her friends here at Boxxer. Our thoughts are with her loved ones at this difficult time,” read the statement from Boxxer, which called O’Connor “a true warrior inside and outside the ring.”
In a January Instagram post, the female fighter revealed she had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. She had been battling severe body pains in the weeks leading up to her diagnosis.
“For 17 weeks since the start of October, I’ve been in constant pain, going back and forth between Durham and Newcastle RVI A&E knowing deep down something was seriously wrong,” O’Connor captioned a photo of her in a hospital bed.
“I said from the start I felt it was cancer. I KNEW the risks. I have colitis and PSC, two diseases that dramatically increase the chances of getting it. I KNOW how high my risk is and they do too. They always did.”
She expressed her anger that doctors refused to take her concerns about possible cancer “seriously.”
“But not one doctor f—ing listened to me. Not one doctor took me seriously. Not one doctor did the scans or blood tests I begged for whilst crying on the floor in agony,” the Instagram post continued, Fox News reported. “Instead, they dismissed me. They gaslit me, told me it was nothing, made me feel like I was overreacting. They refused to scan me. They refused to investigate. They REFUSED to listen. One even told me that it’s ‘all in my head.’ And now? Now the cancer has spread.”
One month later, O’Connor shared another heartbreaking personal update.
“The last few months have been a rollercoaster,” O’Connor wrote. “I’ve been pregnant with a beautiful baby, suffered a miscarriage, then got diagnosed with ‘incurable’ cancer. But I still feel on top of the world!”
However, her last days were filled with joy when O’Connor announced she had “married the love of her life” on May 9.
“09.05.2025. The day I married the love of my life. 🤍,” she wrote in a post show her ringed left hand beneath that of husband Adriano Cardinali.
Her final Instagram post showed the couple celebrating Cardinali’s birthday, who she called “my Italian prince.”
“I never in my life thought I would find someone like you. Someone with such a pure heart and soul, someone who makes me feel loved every day, someone who would do absolutely anything for me… someone as weird as me,” she wrote.
Despite her struggle with ulcerative colitis and primary sclerosing cholangitis, O’Connor was able to maintain an undefeated boxing record. She went pro in 2021 after medaling in the 2017 and 2018 Youth World Championships.
She was a native of Durham, England.
