Kathy ‘Wildcat’ Collins Commemorates the 30th Anniversary of Fighting in the First Women’s Boxing Match at MSG

“I felt like a star but I knew I’d be fighting for my life in there and I don’t think scared could quite cover how I felt. I knew she was more experienced, I’d never gone that distance (six rounds), and I had two weeks’ preparation,” Kathy Collins-Globuschutz tells me about her state of mind leading up to the groundbreaking August 20, 1996 matchup pitting her against Andrea DeShong at the Mecca of Boxing.

“I had a lot of weight to lose in a short period of time and was essentially the lamb being led to slaughter. But I was female, the right weight, already licensed and medicalled by the commission, I was local and a perfect match to the promoter. That was the only reason I got the call. I was the most cost-efficient option,” says Kathy. “But I’d have the money I’d need to go back to school, so I took it.”

The rest, as they say, is history, so let’s go back and retrace the steps along Kathy’s unlikely journey to MSG.

“Births have brought us richness and variety. And other births will bring us richness and variety,” wrote Walt Whitman in the epic poem “Song of Myself” from his seminal work, Leaves of Grass. “I do not call one greater and one smaller. That which fills its period and place is equal to any.” Whitman’s ties to the Long Island town of Huntington are well documented, his birthplace in the hamlet of West Hills having been preserved as a historic site and museum which is within moderate walking distance of a shopping mall and a high school both bearing the bard’s name. 

When it comes to fighters rather than writers, though the two are not always mutually exclusive, Gerry Cooney is most famously associated with calling Huntington home. But he’s not alone and, in the interest of variety and all things being equal, as affirmed above by Mr. Whitman, our mission here is to focus the spotlight on Kathy ‘Wildcat’ Collins and celebrate the 30^th anniversary of the watershed moment she shared with Andrea DeShong which significantly moved the needle used to chart the evolution of women’s boxing.

Long Island’s first female world boxing champion, Collins is a longtime resident of the Huntington area who, as part of her road work regimen, would do sprints on the track at Walt Whitman High School. Additionally, Kathy ran for distance on Oakwood Road, a three-mile stretch of moderately-trafficked pavement that connects the major artery of Jericho Turnpike to the heart of Huntington Village, and improved her endurance by scrambling up the hills of nearby Northport.

For a nursing student from suburban Long Island, it was an especially big deal to compete in the first sanctioned professional women’s boxing match at Madison Square Garden. But, as dauting an assignment as it was, the Garden’s interior was not unfamiliar terrain to Collins. Nor was making history there. And it all started with a trip to the gym just to get in shape.   

“I went to the Academy of Boxing for Women here on Long Island in 1994. I started for fun and fitness, but in ‘95 USA Boxing opened the New York Daily News Golden Gloves to women for the first time,” explains Collins. “There were over one hundred applications and twenty-four women actually competed. I was the only one who got three fights out of the tournament.”

A mere nine months after first lacing up a pair of boxing gloves, Kathy became a member of the inaugural class of women to fight in the New York Golden Gloves. She made it all the way to the finals of the 139-pound division held at Madison Square Garden’s Paramount Theater, but lost a 5-0 decision to grade school teacher Denise Lutrick in what “looked like a waterfront brawl,” according to the Daily News. 

“When it was over, that was it. No other tournaments were available. No Metros, No World Games and certainly no Olympics. I thought that was the end of it for me,” reflects Collins. “The owner of the gym, Frank Globuschutz (to whom Kathy is now married), presented the idea of turning pro three weeks later. I hesitated, not seeing a real future, but I agreed to one fight. It was a paid opportunity at the Westbury Music Fair and figured why not.”

An intimate 3,000-seat concert hall in Nassau County, the Westbury Music Fair is best known for having its stage positioned in the middle of the venue so that musicians and comedians perform “in the round” with the audience encircling them on all sides. They began hosting boxing shows in 1994, offering former short-term WBC heavyweight champion Trevor Berbick a spot as the headliner of their premiere event. Collins wound up fighting there on four occasions early in her career, debuting on August 28, 1995 with a four-round decision over Laure Bishoff and returning eight months later to outpoint Erica Schmidlin.

“Hardly enough to make it a career and not enough fights to improve as a fighter,” Collins says in regard to her first two bouts at Westbury Music Fair. “I was actively looking to return to nursing school and a more stable future. On deferment, I needed $1200 to return.” A little more than three months after her second fight, Kathy received a phone call with an offer she couldn’t refuse, one which would send her life on an altogether different trajectory.

“A six rounder, which I’d never done, against the only woman to beat Christy Martin, in two weeks. The first between two women at MSG, on the USA Tuesday Night Fights series. Another first. But the most miraculous part was the $200 a round, exactly what I needed to return to school,” Collins says. The bout was set for the Garden’s Paramount Theater, the site of Kathy’s Golden Gloves final’s appearance the year before. “I was overmatched by quite a bit in experience. But, to me, it seemed a gift from God to right my path and get back to college. Win or lose, that was the plan. The fight was designed as a showcase for Andrea, the only woman to have ever beaten Christy on a national level. They were even bringing Christy in to do the color commentating on our fight and set up a super fight between Andrea and Christy.”

A two-time Tough Woman Contest winner fighting out of Mingo Junction, Ohio, Andrea DeShong emerged onto the more or less dormant women’s boxing scene six months before Christy Martin in 1989, battling ‘The Coalminer’s Daughter’ twice prior to tangling with Kathy Collins and scoring a majority decision win over Martin in Christy’s fourth pro bout. It would be nine years before Martin lost again, to Sumya Anani in 1998, avenging her defeat to DeShong twice over along the way—by a questionable split decision five months after their first encounter, and by TKO in their rubber match on the undercard of the infamous Tyson/Holyfield ‘Bite Fight’ in 1997. DeShong arrived in Manhattan for her historic scrap against Collins sporting a record of 11-2 with 5 knockouts, fresh off an impressive shutout win over Stacy Prestage just eight weeks earlier.    

“The fights at the Garden that night was the return of boxing to the venue after the Riddick Bowe/Andrew Golota riots and (there was) a ton of press and scrutiny about the security of the arena,” Collins remembers. “Lou Savarese and Hector Camacho and Junior Jones were the main features. We were to be the opening fight on the broadcast and they were conducting a telephone poll of viewers to determine if the general population really wanted to see women box.” Additional challenges unique to the unprecedented nature of the situation had to be dealt with. “The commission was in new territory with women boxers as far as weigh-ins and dressing room privacy away from the men,” Kathy says, “but Junior graciously abdicated his private dressing room for me so I wouldn’t have to share with the guys. Always a gentleman!”

The big moment had arrived. Pre-fight jitters are to be expected. On this night, even more so.

“The knock on the door. ‘Let’s go!’ My heart dropped to my stomach. The walk down the hall, I felt like I couldn’t stand on my legs. The nerves. Then I see her over there, shadow boxing, warming up, ripping off combos. All the color drained from my face,” admits Collins. Despite the fact that she maneuvered through the passageway like a novice parachutist approaching the open hatch of the plane they’re about to freefall out of, a funny thing happened on her way to the ring and, just like that, it all turned around in her favor.

“I walked to the right and the place erupted at my entrance. She (DeShong) walked in breakdancing, having the time of her life. This was her show. We all knew it. But the crowd, they booed her,” Kathy says. “You see, it was a New York crowd and I was from New York and they wanted me to win. Then I wanted to win too. The bell went off and, the first round, I ran around a lot just trying to get my bearings. At the end of the first she caught me and it was then that I knew I couldn’t stand, take her shots, and win this fight.”

With precious little time to spare for a feeling-out process in a six-round fight, Kathy gained her composure, held her ground, bit down on her gumshield, and unleashed a heavy barrage of body blows which caught the attention of the spectators and sportswriters present. Her adversary couldn’t help but take notice too, it goes without saying. When the final bell tolled and the verdict had been read aloud, Collins had defied the odds stacked against her, pulling off the upset and defeating the far more battle-tested Andrea DeShong. A tally of 60-54 on Melvina Lathan’s scorecard and matching totals of 58-56 arrived at by both Larry Hazzard Jr. and Harold Lederman gave her a unanimous decision victory in front of 2,517 fight fans who were as partisan as they were passionate.

“She claimed (to be) surprised, unprepared for that level of competition. Which could be true, but I also had no prep time and a lot less experience. When I came out of the ring at the Garden, I felt amazed. Dennis Rapport (one half of the ‘Wacko Twins,’ as he and business partner Mike Jones were called, who co-managed fellow Long Islanders Gerry Cooney and Howard Davis Jr., among others) handed me a promotional contract. Everlast handed me an endorsement contract. And the media was lined up, wanting interviews,” recalls Collins. One newspaper headline hovering over a complimentary writeup of the fight, from The Record out of Hackensack, New Jersey, enthused Women Upstage Listless Camacho.

“It was a very Cinderella moment! But, also, it created a career opportunity,” Kathy continues. “It sent everyone into thinking I should be the one to fight Christy since I beat Andrea. I was not ready for that fight, I was so new, but the buzz started there in 1996.”

Sure enough, Christy Martin would take part in the first women’s bout inside Madison Square Garden’s main arena, almost one year to the day after Kathy Collins’ win over Andrea DeShong at MSG’s Paramount Theater, but Collins did not get the call for that fight. Instead, Martin dropped future world champion Isra Girgrah in the second round of an otherwise competitive scrap that could have reasonably gone either way on the scorecards. But Martin received the nod from the judges and a shower of boos from the New York crowd.

As for Collins, she ditched nursing school for the sweet science, preferring to dedicate herself to the craft of inflicting bodily harm rather than healing it. Four weeks after beating Andrea DeShong, Kathy revisited the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island where she made quick work of Angela Buchanan courtesy of a first-round knockout. A quartet of consecutive stalemates followed, including back to back confrontations with trailblazer Dora Webber in less than one weeks’ time, the second of which occurred at Collins’ stomping grounds at—you guessed it—the Westbury Music Fair.

After getting back in the win column by decisioning Leah Mellinger in Atlantic City, Kathy claimed her first world championship with a second-round TKO of Christina Berry for the IBA welterweight title. Collins added another belt to her trophy case two and a half months later by forcing Helga Risoy to quit on her stool at the end of three rounds with the IWBF world super-lightweight title at stake.

Andrea DeShong reentered Kathy’s orbit in 1998 for a rematch on an all-female card in Atlantic City. Now 13-6-1, DeShong was in the midst of an unenviable fight schedule that resulted in three straight TKO losses—to Jane Couch, Christy Martin, and Lucia Rijker. A work itinerary doesn’t get a whole lot tougher than that, and things wouldn’t get any easier. In defense of her IWBF title, Collins made it four losses in a row for the now battle-damaged DeShong by unanimous decision while taking the 2-0 advantage in their personal rivalry.

DeShong wasn’t done quite yet, but she would eventually view her boxing career through the rearview mirror after losses on points to Sumya Anani and Mitzi Jeter which, by August 1999, put her at more than a decade in the sport and two and a half years removed from her last victory. Still residing in Mingo Junction, Ohio, Andrea DeShong is the owner and operator of a massage therapy studio. (Author’s note: For the record, I also reached out to Andrea with the intention of making this story an equal collaboration between her and Kathy but didn’t receive a response.)

Kathy Collins, meanwhile, continued her winning ways by becoming a three-division world champion with a close unanimous decision over Marischa Sjauw for the WIBF lightweight title. Sandwiched between a pair of wins over Canadian warrior Olivia Gerula, Kathy suffered her first professional loss by way of split decision in a televised rematch with Leah Mellinger. Collins rebounded nicely, rattling off a three-fight win streak that began with her second victory over Gerula, after which she added the WIBA super-lightweight strap to her collection by beating Denise Moraetes. And then, finally, after defeating Cheryl Nance and running her record to 14-1-4, there came Christy Martin and a return to Madison Square Garden.

“It took five more years and four world titles, including a unification of all the belts at the time at 140 pounds, to create that super fight,” Kathy says. Also required was Collins’ signature on a promotional contract with Don King. “The first six figure payday between two women and a co-feature in the Garden at the big house in 2001.”

Kathy went toe to toe with the best in the business over the ten-round distance, but Martin won a majority decision and was booed by the Garden faithful once again. Since a well-deserved rematch with Christy appeared highly unlikely, Kathy entered into negotiations for a fight against Lucia Rijker, who sat alongside Jim Lampley and George Foreman at the broadcast table for the first few rounds of the Martin/Collins dustup at MSG. During the on again/off again talks, Collins learned that she was pregnant with her son and so, with no regrets and by what she calls “God’s will,” she left boxing behind to begin a family.

She is co-owner of the Academy of Boxing gym in Huntington Station with her husband Frank, Collins’ former manager and founder of the IWBF. Kathy was a 2021 inductee into the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame, and a member of the Class of 2022 in both the New York State and Atlantic City Boxing Halls of Fame. 

“I feel very honored to have started and finished at Madison Square Garden,” Collins says in summation. “In quite a few of the biggest fights of that era.”

Chevelle Hallback Wants the Boxing World to Know “I’m Not Done Yet!”

 

“The question everyone keeps asking is, ‘Why are you still boxing?’ At the age that I am, most people think this is where the story ends. But I feel retirement isn’t determined by other people’s opinions. It’s determined by your purpose,” insists Chevelle Hallback, who turns 55 in September and has won seven world titles in four weight classes during a career that has spanned twenty-nine years and counting. In fact, her victory over Yamila Reynoso in March 2024 earned Chevelle the NBA world welterweight title, making her the oldest boxer in the sport’s centuries-long history to accomplish such a feat.

You might think those would all be reasons sufficient enough for Hallback to call it quits. Think again. And make no mistake, this is no paint by numbers picture of an aging fighter declining to listen to reason or fooling themselves into believing they can turn back time. This is about persevering with dignity and a clear objective and, more importantly than that, honoring a deathbed pact. But don’t take my word for it. Let Chevelle Hallback herself tell you why this matters so much to her. And, by extension, why it should matter to you too. 

“Not Done Yet isn’t about refusing to age. And I am in no way trying to prove 54 is the new 24. Even though I make it look like it is. But it’s about refusing to let age define you, fear define you, failure define you, and society deciding when your purpose expires. I am proving that purpose does not have an expiration date,” Hallback explains. “Not Done Yet is bigger than me. It’s a movement. That’s when people realize Not Done Yet belongs to them too. For seniors it means, ‘I still have purpose.’ Not Done Yet. The people over 40 who thought it was too late to start over in life. Not Done Yet. The person who’s afraid to start. Not Done Yet. The young boxer watching. Not Done Yet. Basically inspiring people to keep pursuing what God has called them to do. I want people to understand that this isn’t a comeback story. Because I never left. This is simply the next chapter.”

Chevelle’s story is a fascinating one that is still being told in real time. She is living the kind of life movies are made of, so it’s no wonder that a generationally beloved fight film was what first sparked the imagination of the young girl from Florida who mustered up the courage to prove to herself, and to the world, that a person from humble origins can defy the odds and achieve extraordinary things.     

“My love for boxing began at the tender age of five when my mother took me to see Rocky,” Chevelle tells me. “I will never forget it. Rocky was taking a beating, and my mother became so caught up in the fight that she stood up in the middle of the movie theater, shouting at the screen, ‘Hit him back! Hit him back!’ The excitement in that theater was contagious, and something awakened inside of me. From that day forward, I fell in love with the idea of boxing.”

This was only the beginning. The first signal of a transmission being sent from somewhere in the universe, summoning Chevelle to answer the call and commence her search for a higher purpose. The next message would be coming soon.  

“Two years later, when I was seven years old, it was like history repeated itself. It was 9:00 at night, and I was supposed to be in bed asleep when I suddenly heard my mother yelling from her bedroom, ‘Hit him back!’ Those words instantly took me back to that day in the movie theater,” Hallback continues. “I jumped out of bed, ran into my parents’ room, and there, on the big floor-model television sitting on the floor, was another boxing match. This time it wasn’t a movie. It was Muhammad Ali versus Leon Spinks in their second fight. I stood there completely captivated. As I watched, I found myself bobbing and weaving, throwing punches through the air as if I were in the ring myself. I went to bed that night wishing I could be a boxer because, what I watched on TV, I just knew I could do all of that. I didn’t realize it then, but that night would shape the course of my life. Deep down, I believed I could be great.”

Despite the trailblazing efforts of female boxers like Lady Tyger, Caroline Svendsen, Sue Fox, Theresa ‘Princess Red Star’ Kibby, Cora and Dora Webber, and Shirley ‘Zebra Girl’ Tucker in the 1970s and 80s when Chevelle was growing up, the fight game still had little if anything to offer aspiring women. That was about to change, however. The mainstream media attention lavished upon Christy Martin beginning in 1996 resulted in a gravitational pull that brought an impactful new generation of women into boxing’s orbit. And they made damn sure it stayed that way.     

“Eighteen years later, when opportunities for women finally began to emerge, I walked into a boxing gym for the very first time at 24 years old and began the journey that would change my life forever,” says Hallback. Not everyone initially saw eye to eye with Chevelle when it came to supporting her mission to become a professional boxer. “My biological father is deceased. My stepfather, my daddy, has been in my life since I was two years old. Now, my mother had a real problem with it because I am her daughter. My daddy didn’t really say much about it. Other members of my family was like, ‘You have beautiful teeth, why risk getting them knocked out?’ But once they saw how good I was at it, oh boy! Everybody was in my corner.”

Regarding the question of amateur experience, Chevelle tells me she had none. “I trained and went to two amateur fights but could not get a fight. So I turned pro. It was on the job training for me,” she said. Chevelle ‘Fists of Steel’ Hallback made a statement right out of the gate, scoring a first-round technical knockout of fellow novice Connie Plosser on February 21, 1997 at Miami’s Mahi Temple Shrine Auditorium with future heavyweight Shannon Briggs fighting in the main event. Blissfully unaware of it at the time, a trial by fire awaited Chevelle in her second bout. 

“After my professional debut, which lasted all of about 30 seconds, my manager and trainer received a call about a six-round televised fight in Texas,” recalls Hallback. Promoted by Top Rank, the broadcast would be headlined by a super-featherweight world championship showdown between titleholder Azumah Nelson and challenger Genaro Hernandez, with the WBC belt changing hands by split decision. “The promoter said my opponent, Lucia Rijker, was around my height, in my weight class, and had only three professional boxing matches. The purse was $5,000. Now, to put that into perspective, I had just made $400 for my first four-round fight. Going from $400 to $5,000, plus the opportunity to fight on television? To me, that wasn’t even a decision. It was a dream. I had just knocked out ‘Ms. King Kong,’ and I was riding high. I accepted the fight immediately.”

With little time to deal with the consequences, a reality check or two would rear their heads soon enough and bring Chevelle back down to earth. “The problem was, I wasn’t training. I had just fought, so I was celebrating. I wasn’t back in the gym. I wasn’t running. I wasn’t preparing for another fight because I wasn’t expecting one so soon,” Hallback admits. “My first fight was in February, and the Rijker fight was scheduled exactly one month later in March. Another thing people should know about me is that I didn’t really follow women’s boxing back then. I studied the male fighters because they were the fighters I wanted to model my style after. So when they told me I was fighting Lucia Rijker, the name meant absolutely nothing to me. I had never heard of her.” Hallback’s lack of awareness regarding her upcoming opponent wouldn’t last long.

“Then came the night before I was supposed to leave for Texas. An HBO special came on television. Guess who it was about? Lucia Rijker,” remembers Chevelle. “They showed highlights of her fights, one knockout after another. As I watched, I remember thinking, ‘Wait a minute...I think that’s the girl I’m fighting.’ I immediately called my trainer. ‘Coach, what’s the name of the girl I’m fighting?’ He hesitated for a second and said, ‘I think her name is Rijker.’ I said, ‘Turn to HBO. Right now.’ He did. Silence. Finally, I asked, ‘Is THAT the girl I’m fighting?’ His response wasn’t reassuring. Instead, he said, ‘Yeah...what’s the problem? You scared of that girl?’ I told him, ‘No. I’m not scared of anybody.’ And I wasn’t. But there’s a difference between being scared and being realistic.”

Honest self-assessment is as integral to a boxer’s development as consistent roadwork, quality sparring, intuitive coaching, and good nutrition. “I knew I wasn’t on her level—not because I lacked heart, but because I lacked experience. On paper, Lucia only had three professional boxing matches. What nobody told me was that she was already one of the greatest kickboxers in the world with well over 100 professional kickboxing fights. She had years of elite combat experience that didn’t show up on her boxing record,” Chevelle says. “By then, I had already signed the contract. Backing out wasn’t an option in my mind. I didn’t want to be labeled unreliable or be blackballed this early in my career. So I honored my word and got on the plane. When the bell rang, something happened that surprised almost everyone. I won the first round. I won the second round. The third round was even. Then reality caught up with me. By the fourth round, I had absolutely nothing left,” she confessed. “I wasn’t exhausted because I lacked heart. I was exhausted because I hadn’t been training. I hadn’t been running. I hadn’t prepared for a six-round war against one of the most experienced combat athletes on the planet. The only thing holding me up at that point was pride. Looking back, I truly believe that if I had been in fighting shape, even with the technical advantage Lucia had, I wouldn’t have been stopped. I believe I would have at least gone the distance and possibly lost a decision. Maybe even pulled off the upset.”

To put it mildly, this was a learning experience for Chevelle. There was cause for optimism despite the outcome, but there was also serious cause for concern stemming from a subsequent struggle with depression which was augmented by a revelation of betrayal. Boxing, it goes without saying, is not for the weak-willed or faint of heart.   

“Years later, legendary trainer Freddie Roach (who was working with Rijker at the time) told me something I’ll never forget. He said I was stronger than Lucia on the inside and that I had given both of them a real scare. That meant a lot coming from someone of his caliber,” Hallback says. “After the fight, Lucia herself spoke to me. She told me, ‘Once you really learn how to box, you’re going to be really good.’ I smiled, thanked her, and immediately asked for a rematch. She smiled back and said, ‘I’ll never give you a rematch.’ I’ll let you decide what that mean that meant.”

Being denied a chance at redemption would be a recurring theme for Hallback throughout her career. As it turned out, things took a decided turn for the worse in the days and weeks afterward, as Chevelle explains.

“Later, I learned something that hurt far more than losing the fight. I discovered that my coach had allegedly accepted money under the table to put me in that fight without fully telling me who I was really facing,” she discloses. “That was the day I realized everyone in your corner isn’t always in your corner. It was also the day I knew I needed a new trainer. Looking back now, I don’t regret taking the fight. That night taught me lessons about trust, preparation, business, and belief that no easy victory ever could. It was only my second professional fight, but it helped shape the fighter, and eventually the seven-time world champion, I would become.”

Before she could put those lessons learned into practice, there was the emotional fallout from such a devastating turn of events to contend with. When it seems like the sky is falling, running for cover is a natural reflex. It’s what you do, or don’t do, next that is crucial. How will you react to the crisis at hand? Some days it’s all you can do to pick your head up off the pillow much less pick up the shattered remnants of your life and reassemble them in a way that makes sense and allows you to see with the clarity necessary to move forward, to evolve.   

“Losing to Lucia Rijker affected me more than any punch she landed. For three weeks, I was in a dark place. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I barely got out of bed. I had been humiliated on national television in front of my family, my friends, and what felt like the entire world. To make matters worse, there was a television show at the time called Extra. Every time they did a story on Lucia, they showed the same clip, her knocking me down. It seemed like I couldn’t escape that fight,” says Chevelle. “I replayed it in my own mind over and over, and every time I turned on the television, there it was again. It felt like the world was reliving my worst night, and I was forced to relive it with them. My family was worried about me. My grandmother was especially concerned. One day she looked at me and said, ‘Baby, maybe you should just leave boxing alone.’ She wasn’t trying to hurt me. She loves me. But hearing those words from my grandmother did something inside of me. I had a long conversation with myself. Was she right? Was boxing really for me? After a lot of soul-searching, I made a decision that would shape the rest of my career. I got out of that bed. I brushed myself off. And I went back to work.”

No doubt there was restructuring to be done, but nothing truly worth having is ever easy to come by. Chevelle is a flesh and blood example of that.  

“The first thing I did was figure out how to separate myself from the manager/trainer who had put me in the Rijker fight under circumstances I didn’t fully understand. I knew if I was going to have a future in boxing, I needed people in my corner who truly had my best interests at heart. Then I became a student of the sport. Not just someone who fought. Someone who studied. I started watching fight tapes every chance I got, looking for a style that spoke to me. That’s when I found Roy Jones, Jr. Man, I wanted to be Roy Jones,” enthuses Hallback. “Everything about him amazed me. His speed, his reflexes, his confidence, his creativity. I studied every move he made. I watched those VHS tapes until I practically wore them out. Then I’d go to the gym and try to imitate everything I had seen. Looking back, Roy Jones didn’t just become one of my favorite fighters, he became one of my greatest teachers even though we had never met.”

Chevelle’s hard work and commitment paid off in the form of two consecutive first-round knockouts, of Judy Mayrand and Bethany Payne respectively, after which a little less than six months had elapsed since the Lucia Rijker fight. The Bethany Payne knockout had occurred in Boca Raton, Florida which was where Bonnie ‘The Cobra’ Canino lived. A black belt in multiple martial arts disciplines and world champion kickboxer who could boast the rare distinction of lasting the full distance against Lucia Rijker, Canino made the move to prizefighting at the beginning of 1996 and had already contested for one world title, in a losing effort opposite Deirdre Gogarty, and won another by beating Beverly Szymanski in her very next fight.   

“Bonnie wasn’t just a world champion. She also owned a boxing gym. After the fight, she invited me to come train with her whenever I was in South Florida. Even though I had lost to Lucia, Bonnie told me she was impressed that I had the courage to take that fight. We developed a friendship built on mutual respect,” says Hallback. “Then something unexpected happened. A promoter in the Fort Lauderdale-Miami area was putting together an all-women’s boxing card. Bonnie was scheduled to headline. I was scheduled to be the co-main event. Then both of our opponents withdrew. The promoter called me. He said, ‘Since both opponents fell out, how would you feel about fighting Bonnie for the world title?’ I was stunned. ‘Wait...Bonnie?’ I honestly didn’t know how to process it. She wasn’t just another opponent. She was my friend. I didn’t even know if fighting a friend was something people actually did. It didn’t seem right to me.”

Being forced to navigate parcels of uncharted territory is commonplace in boxing, just as in everyday life. The question is, do you trust your instincts enough to proceed straight ahead or get creative and plot an alternate route? Hallback preferred the direct approach.

“I asked the promoter, ‘Have you talked to Bonnie yet?’ He said, ‘No. I wanted to ask you first.’ I told him, ‘Talk to Bonnie first. Then call me back.’ Before he ever had the chance, I called Bonnie myself. ‘Did the promoter call you about us fighting each other?’ She said he had. Then she told me something that changed everything. ‘I need to know what you’re going to do because if we’re going to fight each other, I can’t have you coming to my gym.’ I understood that part,” says Chevelle. “Then she added, ‘Because I’m trying to help you, not hurt you.’ She meant it out of respect. But that’s not how I heard it. What I heard was, ‘If we fight, I’m going to hurt you.’ That lit a fire inside me. I remember thinking, ‘Hurt me?’ I didn’t argue. I didn’t try to convince her otherwise. I simply said, ‘Okay.’ She got her answer when she saw me at the press conference.”

Main-eventing an all-female fight card and vying for a world championship (the vacant WIBF featherweight title previously held by Deirdre Gogarty and fought for by Canino) in only her fifth pro bout was a monumental occasion for Hallback. Camaraderie or not, taking this opportunity lightly, or not taking it at all, never entered into the equation.

“From that day forward, I trained harder than I had ever trained before. I found out about the fight in January (1997). We fought in March. The rest is history. I won by TKO. Time has a way of putting things into perspective. After the fight, there were no hard feelings. Bonnie and I remained friends. Whenever I was in the Miami area, I’d stop by her gym, train alongside her fighters, and we’d even spar a few rounds ourselves,” Chevelle recalls. They even fought one another again seven years later, another TKO win for Hallback in what was a one and done comeback for Canino after retiring in 1999. “That’s one of the things I love most about boxing. Before the bell rings, you’re opponents. After the final bell, if it’s done with respect, you can become friends again. Bonnie Canino wasn’t just another name on my résumé. She was part of my journey. She helped me realize that I belonged in the ring with world champions. More importantly, she helped me become one.”

There was much to celebrate after this victory. Not only was Chevelle Hallback a world champion for the first time, but the preparation for her win over Bonnie Canino marked the beginning of a long and prosperous partnership with trainer Luis R. Avila, Sr.

After pitching a four-round shutout against Hayde Nunez, Hallback fell to defeat in two consecutive bouts, both by way controversial majority decisions—the first to unbeaten Canadian (by way of Austria) Doris ‘The Hammer’ Hackl with the IFBA super-featherweight title on the line, and the second to Laura Serrano, the first Mexican female world champion and future hall of famer.     

“Out of my nine professional losses, I truly believe I only lost two of them,” declares Hallback. “I know every fighter thinks they should have gotten the decision, so I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. But there are moments from those fights that have stayed with me for years. Take Laura Serrano, for example. Years after we fought, I saw Laura at the Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame. During our conversation, she looked at me and said, ‘You beat me that night.’ She didn’t have to say that. She had nothing to gain from it. That’s one of the reasons I have so much respect for Laura. It took character to acknowledge that, especially years after the fight.”

Starting in November 2001, Chevelle embarked on an incredible 16-fight unbeaten streak that extended over a 22-month period and included wins over the likes of Alicia Ashley, Layla McCarter, Mitzi Jeter (in back-to-back skirmishes), 1970s trailblazer Britt VanBuskirk, and Melissa Del Valle, picking up the inaugural IBA super-featherweight title along the way. A loss to Mary Jo Sanders briefly halted her momentum but Hallback wasted no time getting back in the win column by beating Bonnie Canino in their rematch a mere fifteen days later. Not even a month after that, Chevelle notched a second win over ‘Amazing’ Layla McCarter, who had gamely competed with an injured hand in their first fight, to capture the WIBA world super-featherweight title which she then defended successfully against Fujin Raika, on the Japanese phenom’s home turf no less, and the criminally underrated Belinda Laracuente.

Like it or not, Holly Holm would become a very familiar face to Chevelle over the next three and a half years, beginning with Holly’s victory over Hallback on May 23, 2007. After grinding out a win in an eight-rounder over Terri Blair, recognized as one of the harder punchers on the women’s boxing scene at the time, Chevelle competed in what can only be described as a pair of instant classics in just over four months. The first, an all-action slugfest against Melissa Hernandez for the vacant IBA world lightweight title, was scored a split draw. Hallback would win the still-unclaimed IBA strap, not to mention the WBAN championship belt (and WBAN Fighter of the Month honors), in her next outing by emerging victorious over then-unbeaten Jeannine Garside in another high octane scrap. In both cases, Chevelle’s co-feature bouts stole the show from headliner and fan favorite Holly Holm, who defeated Belinda Laracuente and Mary Jo Sanders in each main event, respectively.

With a record of 27-5-2 and a growing collection of championship belts to her credit, Hallback earned a rematch against Holly Holm for the vacant WIBA world super-lightweight title. “We fought in her hometown, and when the decision was announced, the crowd actually booed,” says Chevelle, who came into the contest supremely conditioned, as always, despite a hiatus of more than a year and a half. “To this day, you can easily find our first fight online, but our second fight has never been released. In that fight, I even had Holly hurt and stumbling. I believed I had done more than enough to earn the victory.”

Hallback would cross paths with Holly Holm in Albuquerque one final time a little over eight months later. Not for a well-deserved rubber match, unfortunately, but to tough out a split decision over Victoria Cisneros in the chief support bout to Holm’s title defense against Ann Marie Saccurato. There were two huge opportunities just around the corner involving international travel and shots at world titles sanctioned by the big four alphabet organizations. Victories in either of these fights would have catapulted Hallback to the upper stratosphere of women’s boxing and made hers a household name, but they would instead end in letdown and larceny.

Taking to the friendly skies again in May 2011, for a much longer flight this time, Chevelle found herself in Copenhagen, Denmark to challenge Cecilia Braekhus for her unified (WBC/WBA/WBO) world welterweight titles. Three belts for the price of one…if you don’t count the separate sanctioning fees, that is. “The fight with Cecilia Braekhus is another one that still stands out. Sometimes a single photograph tells the story better than words ever could,” says Chevelle, in reference to images of the visible damage done to Braekhus’ right eye midway through the bout. The defending champion maintained control of the early rounds, but Hallback seemingly dictated the pace and landed the more effective punches the rest of the way. The judges unanimously agreed otherwise, and Braekhus retained her titles via unanimous decision. “After that fight, Cecilia told me she would give me a rematch. That rematch never happened,” Chevelle lamented.

“Then came Myriam Lamare in France,” continues Hallback. Having already held the WIBF and WBF versions of the super-lightweight title courtesy of wins over Jane Couch and Ann Saccurato respectively, Lamare’s only three losses to that point had come against Anne Sophie Mathis (twice) and Holly Holm. “After our fight, Myriam was taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, I ended up at her post-fight celebration, surrounded by her own friends and supporters. One after another, people came over to me saying they thought I had won the fight,” says Chevelle, who once again came out on the short end of a unanimous decision on foreign soil, with one judge giving the fight to Lamare by a ludicrous score of 99-91. “When your opponent’s own supporters believe you deserved the decision, that says a lot.”

Periods of lengthy inactivity followed, interrupted sporadically by wins over Dominga Olivo, Victoria Cisneros for a second time (this one by TKO, which earned Hallback the WBF welterweight title), Szilvia Szabados (twice), and future world title challenger Logan Holler.  

“And then there’s Sonya Dreiling. At this point, I don’t even spend much time talking about that one anymore. Anyone who’s watched the fight can make up their own mind,” Chevelle says about her infamous 2022 split decision loss which was judged so ineptly that widespread demand for an immediate return bout bombarded various social media platforms. “There was an entire round where she barely landed a clean punch on me, yet she was awarded the round anyway. I even slowed the footage down frame by frame and posted it so people could see exactly what was and wasn’t landing.” The evidence is there for the world to see and it’s true that even the most jaded skeptic would find difficulty in denying the obvious. As for Dreiling, she backed out of a scheduled appearance on former WBC International lightweight champion Brooke Dierdorff-Millbrook’s podcast No Punches Pulled to offer her perspective on the controversy and turned a deaf ear to the many pleas resounding throughout the boxing community to give Hallback the rematch she rightfully deserved.

“At the end of the day, the record books say those fights were losses. They can’t change how hard I fought. They can’t change what happened inside those ropes. And they certainly can’t change what I know in my heart every time I watch those fights back,” attests Chevelle. “Boxing is scored by human beings, and human beings aren’t perfect. Sometimes you get the decision. Sometimes you don’t. The only thing you can control is how you respond. I chose to keep fighting.”

Except, she almost didn’t. “I want to share something with you,” Chevelle said, prefacing her recollection of the tragic loss that inspired her current mission statement. “My trainer that I had since my 5th pro fight, the one I fought for my very first title against Bonnie Canino, and my last title I just won two years ago, he died June of last year. And on his deathbed, I told him that I was done because I was not going to fight another fight without him.” she revealed. Chevelle and Luis Avila had jointly experienced the breathtaking highs and gut-wrenching lows of a nearly three decade-long journey through the often unforgiving landscape of professional boxing. Just when it seemed as if Hallback’s journey would end with Luis’ passing, Chevelle tells me that he wouldn’t allow that to happen. “On his deathbed, he opened his eyes, looked me straight in my face, and said, ‘No! Not done yet.’”

With that ever present in her mind, Hallback is pounding the pavement and hitting the gym with renewed drive, sometimes sporting a t-shirt that, appropriately enough, shows a 50s-model Chevy truck (Chevy being her nickname) sandwiched between the words I’M NOT OLD. I’M CLASSIC.

Her goal is a lofty one. “I want Claressa Shields before it’s all said and done,” Chevelle says, “and I really believe in all of me that it’s going to happen.” She has been calling out the self-proclaimed GWOAT for at least three years now, so far to no avail. 

“I am a 7-time world champion boxer, fitness entrepreneur, and motivational leader and speaker,” says Chevelle with understandable pride. “I specialize in training women 30 and over in fitness and help them realize they are stronger than they think. And that they’re Not Done Yet.”

Whether or not the Shields fight materializes remains to be seen. Whatever comes next, there are a few things we already know for sure. Chevelle Hallback (34-9-2, 13 KOs) is a sure-fire first ballot hall of famer with her priorities straight, her heart in the right place, a positive attitude that is as infectious as her smile, and a fighting spirit that will not give up, give in, or give out. 

“Winning is an incredible feeling. Every athlete trains to win. Every competitor wants their hand raised. But when I look back on my life, it wasn’t the victories that shaped me the most. It was the losses. The setbacks. The disappointments. The heartbreak. Those were the moments that forged the woman I would become,” Chevelle states in conclusion. “It’s easy to celebrate an undefeated champion. But my story isn’t about being undefeated. It’s about getting knocked down, getting overlooked, getting outscored, getting doubted and refusing to let any of those moments define me. I refused to let a judge’s scorecard, a critic’s opinion, a disappointing night, or someone else’s expectations write the final chapter of my life. Every setback became another reason to get back up. Every obstacle became another opportunity to grow. Every ‘no’ became fuel for my next ‘yes.’ That’s why Not Done Yet isn’t just a slogan. It’s my testimony. It’s the promise I made to myself that no defeat would ever have the final say. Because as long as God gives me breath, as long as I have the strength to fight, and as long as there is purpose left in my life, my story is still being written. I’m Not Done Yet.”

A Look Back at the Friendly Rivalry Between Katie Taylor and Natasha Jonas

 

Part One: An Olympic Classic

The decibel level inside London’s Excel Arena on August 6, 2012 was recorded at an eardrum-piercing 113.7 as 10,500 fans were whipped into a frenzy for the Olympic women’s boxing quarter-final match in the lightweight division. To put that into some kind of perspective, this sustained fever pitch caused by a clash between a pair of former footballers who were now two of the United Kingdom’s most highly-touted amateur female fighters—in the exclusive company of Savannah Marshall and Nicola Adams—was louder than the takeoff of a turbo-fan aircraft.

Katie Taylor, Ireland’s budding superstar from Bray in County Wicklow, skipped past the first bracket thanks to having earned a bye at the World Championships in Qinhuangdao, China where she defeated Russia’s Sofya Ochigava. Representing Great Britain, meanwhile, Liverpudlian southpaw Natasha Jonas advanced by taking three of four rounds from Quanitta ‘Queen’ Underwood of the United States, cruising to a decisive 21-13 victory in her opening bout.

“On another day, Ireland would be cheering for GB and GB would be cheering for Ireland,” said Jonas, who was the first British female boxer to qualify for the historic 2012 London games. “We were rivals once we stepped into the ring and the crowd had to choose who they wanted to win.” It wasn’t open to debate that Katie was the clear choice among the fans from the Emerald Isle before the opening bell. But, when all was said and done, Natasha would earn their respect. “I think the whole of Ireland hated me for like two days and then after that fight the whole of Ireland loved me.”

Katie Taylor compared the rambunctious atmosphere to “feeding time at the zoo” in her 2012 book My Olympic Dream. “It seemed as though everybody was rattling their cages and making as much noise as they could,” she wrote. Outfitted in red gear, Katie was the first of the combatants to make her ring walk as Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” the bombastic anthem that has long been a staple at massive sporting events, blasted through the Excel’s PA system at full volume. But you wouldn’t even know it.

The crowd noise was so deafening (quite literally, as it exceeded the tolerable human threshold), you could only just faintly make out Freddie Mercury’s sing-along vocals or Roger Taylor’s trademark drumbeats with which spectators always enthusiastically clap and stomp in unison. This assembly of boxing fanatics required no arena-rock musical accompaniment. Not when they came prepared to create their own berserk soundtrack. “I had barely taken a few steps into the auditorium when the crowd exploded into life,” Taylor reminisced, “and while I wasn’t to know at that point, it would soon become a familiar experience the whole way through the week.”

Taylor and Jonas had an unenviable task ahead of them in producing an exciting scrap that would justify the raucous enthusiasm that greeted them. Not to mention the pressure which was already present in knowing that the winner was guaranteed to take home at least a bronze medal. The challenge was not only accepted but exceeded. “The fight itself was cracking,” Katie recalled. “The best I’ve been involved in for a long time and a real hurricane of a contest.”

Soccer chants spontaneously reverberated throughout the stadium at the end of round one which saw Katie assume and maintain control of the bout’s first two minutes, bouncing on the balls of her feet, scoring from various angles behind her left jab and returning to her corner with a 5-2 edge over Jonas.

As she used her footwork to her best advantage in an attempt to weather Jonas’ sudden onslaught, Katie tumbled onto the canvas thirty seconds into the second frame while dodging a body shot. No contact was made and it was clearly a slip. The Kazakh referee rightfully ruled it as such. Moments earlier, Taylor had gotten her first taste of Natasha’s power when she was backed up several steps courtesy of a right hook that was set up by three straight jabs.

Not only did Taylor have her hands full dealing with a sharper and more offensive-minded Jonas in the second round, she was left to her own devices, strategically speaking, due to the fact that the pandemonium in the stands was such that she was unable to hear the instructions being shouted from ringside by her father and then-coach Peter.

Instinctively, however, Katie was well aware that she needed to do more than merely batten down the hatches. She had to find a way to make Natasha’s aggression somehow work against her and swing the momentum back in her favor. Easier said than done, as the crowd noise continued to amplify beyond anything you would expect at a rock concert.

“I don’t think the officials fully understood what was happening because they had never seen anything like it at an amateur boxing tournament before,” remarked Taylor, who was cautioned repeatedly throughout the proceedings by the referee and the faithful legions of Irish fans let him hear about it every time.

Katie was caught by a lead right while in retreat, then had her head snapped back by a straight left which sent her careening backwards with Jonas in hot pursuit. Katie used her ring acumen to pivot out of harm’s way and spin off the ropes, luring Jonas back to open waters where Taylor initiated her own attack and regained command of the situation. Although the majority of round two appeared to go Natasha Jonas’ way, the judges scored it evenly at 5 points apiece.

Katie had weathered the storm and, unbeknownst to her, as the scoreboard was not visible from her vantage point, put a sizeable lead in her back pocket going into the penultimate round. Nevertheless, Taylor was leaving nothing to chance as she came out swinging for the fences in the third and forced the referee to step in at the halfway point to administer a standing eight count to Jonas after the Brit took a hard right hand right on the button.

A thunderstrike of a left hook beat Natasha to the punch when action resumed and a terrific flurry of combinations and ambidextrous body blows gave Taylor a 9-4 round, putting her ahead by a virtually unreachable distance with just two minutes remaining.

Desperately needing to rack up points, Jonas worked her way inside and let her hands go upstairs and down during toe-to-toe exchanges, but Taylor was simply proving to be too much for her. A right hook by Taylor crashed home just as Jonas was letting loose with a left of her own, necessitating a second standing-eight with a half-minute left to go which essentially sealed the deal for Katie.

Taylor and Jonas embraced at the final bell and Katie acknowledged the roar of the crowd for the first time by lifting one fist victoriously with a huge and well-earned smile on her face. “She’s a super boxer and a fantastic person,” Katie raved about Jonas after their fight. “I had to work so hard. She wasn’t hurt at all. I am just delighted with the win.”

Natasha was equally laudatory toward her conqueror. “I will make no excuses. I have come here feeling the fittest, the leanest, the healthiest, smartest boxer I could be, but she is still the best. I take my hat off to her,” said a contrite Jonas in defeat, of which she need not hold her head down. “There was nothing else I could do. I could’ve thrown the kitchen sink at her or maybe drive a bus into her. I hope she goes on to win it.”

Win it Taylor would, as she turned in a repeat performance against her World Championship rival Sofya Ochigava in the Olympic lightweight finals three days later, albeit by a nerve rackingly slim margin of 10-8, to ascend to the top tier of the medal stand.

Very likely demoralized by a quarrel with her father Peter, which caused a rift between them which was both professional and personal, Katie had to settle for a share of the bronze medal at the 2016 World Championships with Mira Potkonen of Finland, to whom she would lose in the opening round of the Olympics that same year in Rio de Janeiro.

Three months later, Katie Taylor made her eagerly awaited professional debut by putting away 24-fight veteran Karina Kopinska in the third of six scheduled rounds at Wembley Arena. Natasha Jonas was asked to sit in with the Sky Sports broadcast team to provide color commentary, sparking a flame which would slowly and, she admits, reluctantly rekindle her passion for boxing.

She had walked away from the sport nineteen months prior after a foot injury suffered in the opening round fight of the 2014 Commonwealth Games, which she lost to Shelley Watts of Australia, sidelined her indefinitely. A surgical procedure kept Jonas from competing in the 2016 Olympic qualifiers, presenting her with the conundrum of extending her amateur career to make another run at a gold medal in 2020 or turning pro.

Standing at the crossroads at the age of 30 and weighing her options, neither course of action appealed to her all that much at this point in her life and Natasha was content to retire, start a family, and perhaps coach the next generation of female fighters.

Persuaded by Team GB boxing captain Tom Stalker, Jonas laced up the gloves for the first time in two years and stopped Monika Antonik in ninety-two seconds on a June 23, 2017 card in Newcastle. She fought three more times that year, winning each inside the distance, and racked up six straight victories overall before being battered in shocking fashion by Viviane Obenauf, who dropped Natasha three times before her corner threw in the towel in the fourth round. After a layoff of nearly eight months, Jonas rebounded with a points win over Feriche Mashauri and notched two additional TKOs before the calendar flipped over on 2019.

Katie Taylor and Natasha Jonas went into Manchester for their May 1, 2021 rematch hot off pick-or-choose 2020 fight of the year candidates held during the Matchroom Summer Camp Series in Eddie Hearn’s backyard, with Katie besting Delfine Persoon in their second war of attrition for the undisputed lightweight title while Natasha dueled to a riveting and controversial stalemate with WBC and IBO super-featherweight champion Terri Harper two weeks earlier.

In the film world and fight game alike, sequels rarely live up to the original. A rare few though, let’s say Bride of Frankenstein and Rocky Graziano/Tony Zale for example, manage to surpass the expectations imposed upon them by their predecessors. On May 1 in Manchester, Katie Taylor and Natasha Jonas would attempt to capture lightning in a bottle for the second time, conjuring that Olympic magic that made a madhouse of London nine years prior.

 

Part Two: Muted Mayhem in Manchester

The silence was deafening. Thanks to strictly enforced Covid restrictions, the contrast in ambience between Katie Taylor and Natasha Jonas’ 2012 Olympic quarterfinal in London and their encore performance at Manchester Arena on May 1, 2021 was dramatic and, for a rematch that carried such significance and was executed so brilliantly by both parties, quite unfortunate.

Nine years before, both combatants made their ring walks surrounded by a wall of noise generated by more than 10,000 rowdy supporters. For their rematch in the paid ranks, only polite applause from the handful of face-masked staff and spectators permitted inside welcomed world title challenger Natasha Jonas. Next came Katie Taylor, who had been the first of the pair to appear before the hysterical crowd within Excel Arena but, as the current reigning and defending undisputed lightweight champion, customarily stepped through the ropes second this time around.

With advantages over Katie of three inches in both height and reach, Jonas was seemingly given a pass on how high her trunks were pulled up, well past her navel with almost no line of demarcation between her waistband and the bottom of her tank top. Nevertheless, Taylor didn’t have to do much more than was necessary to get the better of Natasha in the first two getting-to-know-you-again type rounds, as opposed to their first fight in London which, at four two-minute frames, was half over by this point with little time to waste on the niceties of becoming acquainted.

The pace picked up in the third round as Katie whaled away at Jonas with a succession of right hands in an attempt to punch her way out of a clinch with her left arm pinned in the crook of Natasha’s right elbow. Referee Marcus McDonnell would issue warnings to Jonas on numerous occasions for holding as well as headbutting, but he never made good on empty threats to deduct points for future infractions. To be fair, head clashes are common in bouts between orthodox fighters and southpaws and, anyway, some were clearly initiated by Taylor, who does tend to lunge forward with her cranium lowered in battering ram fashion.

Fists started flying when action resumed, but Jonas bought herself a few moments of respite when she again used her right arm to trap Katie’s left out of view of the referee. Despite being held behind the head after breaking free of Jonas’ clutches, Taylor began to work her over with a variety of body shots and one/two combinations. Natasha, however, snuck in some well-timed counterpunches and was finding a more consistent home for her right jab and lead left.

Katie got tagged with a stiff jab in the opening seconds of the fourth that snapped her head back but pressed ahead regardless until having her left arm tied up by Jonas once more which resulted in another reprimand from Marcus McDonell. She walked directly into the path of a Taylor left hook and was missing most of her return volleys as Katie employed her graceful footwork to skip out of reach, but Jonas’ jab again caught the champion on the button. All things considered, the fight was fairly even throughout the first half with the slight advantage belonging to Taylor.

To take the belts back to Liverpool, Jonas was going to have to step up the pressure in order to swing the pendulum in her favor. At the midway point of the sixth round, this was precisely what she did. After ducking under a trio of errant punches from Taylor, Natasha blasted her with a short left hook that spun Katie’s head around like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. If there had been just a little more space between the two fighters to allow Jonas to have gotten more momentum behind the punch, Taylor may possibly have hit the deck.

As it was, even thrown from short range, the blow threw Taylor off her axis and Jonas nailed her with a straight right. As she bounced on the balls of her feet to recover her equilibrium, Katie got nailed by another right jab followed moments later by a hook unleashed with the same hand. Things had gotten very interesting indeed heading into the latter half of the contest.

As technically sound a boxer as Katie Taylor is, she never shies away from mixing it up in close quarters. Just as she proved against Terri Harper, Natasha Jonas loves a good scrap herself and was not only happy to oblige a confrontational Taylor without withering under pressure but raised some eyebrows by bullying the bully as the seventh round ticked down. Katie’s punches were crisper and more accurate in the eighth as she looked to control the home stretch and secure a decision, as it could not have been more evident that Jonas was going nowhere.

Champion and challenger, both sensing that the verdict hung on their performance in the final two minutes, pushed themselves past the limits of physical exhaustion and went for broke. Taylor ate a few rights from Jonas before landing one of her own as Natasha banged away at Katie’s midsection.

The up-tempo pace in the tenth round favored Taylor, who unleashed a heavy volume of shots in groups of three and four while an arm-weary Jonas spent the waning moments of the fight covering up and misfiring with weak counters.

With Jonas’ back to the ropes, Katie got in one last two-punch combo as time expired and the two women embraced in a show of mutual respect after the final bell brought an end to this exciting dustup which was a more than satisfying sequel to the original despite the conspicuous absence of audience participation, the mania of which elevated their first fight to almost mythical status.

The margins of victory were threadbare for Taylor compared to nine years before, eking out a unanimous decision over her former Olympic foe by a count of 96-94 on the scorecard of Yury Koptsev while only a single point separated Katie from Jonas according to the tallies arrived at by both Michael Alexander and Andreas Stenberg.

Katie Taylor’s selection of her WBC mandatory challenger, Flora Pili, as her farewell opponent, guaranteed that there will be no often-rumored third act to her friendly rivalry with Natasha Jonas. And considering the fact that Jonas has remained inactive since losing to Lauren Price in March 2025, it seems the last chapter in the careers of both groundbreaking boxers will likely be written in stone once the 80,000-strong din dies down in Croke Park come September 5.

 

Sources:

Jessica Creighton. Natasha Jonas Retires: British Olympic Boxer Quits Aged 30 (BBC Sport, April 7, 2015)

Kathleen McNamee. Natasha Jonas is Ready for Another Shot at Katie Taylor Nine Years After Their Record-Breaking Olympic Fight (espn.com, March 9, 2021)

Kevin Mitchell. Olympic Women’s Boxing: Katie Taylor Beats Britain’s Natasha Jonas (The Guardian, August 6, 2012)

Katie Taylor with Johnny Watterson. My Olympic Dream: The Gold Medal Winner’s Astonishing Own Story (Simon & Schuster, 2012)

Katie Taylor vs. Natasha Jonas—London 2012 Olympics (accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPNp2XG5v7g&t=305)

Ghana’s Sarah Lotus Asare on Promoting Childhood Literacy, Cultural Awareness, and Female Agency Through Boxing

 

The West African nation of Ghana sustains its economy by virtue of exporting gems, crude petroleum, precious metals, cocoa beans, fruits and nuts. One other thing Ghana has a reputation for cultivating is world champion boxers, beginning with David Kotey (DK Poison), who floored and unseated WBC featherweight titleholder Ruben Olivares in 1975. Nine years later, Azumah Nelson, known as ‘The Professor’ and arguably the all-time greatest African boxer, joined the lineage of that very same title by knocking out Wilfredo Gomez in the second to last round while trailing the defending champion on two out of three scorecards at the time.

There was also Nana Konadu, Ike Quartey, Joshua Clottey, and, more recently, Isaac Dogboe, Joseph Agbeko, and Richard Commey, as well as several world title contenders like Roy Ankrah, Floyd Robertson, Ben Tackie, and Joshua Buatsi to name just a few. Some of these fighters, in addition to others, are featured in the pages of the illustrated storybook B For Bukom by Sarah Lotus Asare which takes the reader on an alphabetical tour of Ghana’s boxing heroes, heritage, and history. As you will soon learn in the process of getting to know Sarah, it’s very obvious that no one is better suited to the task. 

Described as “a Ghanaian boxing development advocate, storyteller, cultural curator, and one of the emerging voices redefining how boxing is viewed in Ghana and beyond,” Sarah is deeply rooted to the communities of Bukom and Jamestown specifically. B For Bukom was an innovation of hers that served the purpose of “ensuring that the legacy of Ghanaian boxing is remembered beyond championship titles and fight records,” says Sarah. “Boxing can serve as a pathway for confidence, identity, opportunity, and community transformation.”

Sarah followed up the publication of B For Bukom by curating Atswele Sane: Aspects of Ghana’s Boxing Heritage, an exhibition which ran from August 20 to Sept. 2, 2025 at the University of Ghana’s Museum of Archaeology and Heritage Studies that she says, “brought together photographs, stories, historical elements, and lived experiences from Ghana’s boxing spaces, helping audiences see boxing as an important cultural and historical institution rather than simply a combat sport.” Boxing means so much more to Sarah than merely as an intellectual subject. It is a societal touchstone and a vital component to her genetic code.    

(Sarah and a young boxer with Azumah Nelson at WBC Cares event)

“In terms of my experience growing up in Ghana, it was pretty much like every other person’s upbringing. For most of my childhood, the focus was to be in school, to study and things of that sort,” Sarah tells me. What wasn’t so commonplace about Sarah’s childhood was having boxers like Bastie Samir, Duke Micah, and many others pay regular visits to her home. This was because they came to sit beneath the learning tree that is Sarah’s father, Dr. Kwesi Ofori Asare, longtime head coach of the Ghanaian National Boxing Team, called the Black Bombers, and technical director of the Ghana Boxing Federation (GBF), who continues to operate out of the renowned Wisdom Boxing Gym in Accra. “One of my fondest memories as a child is when my dad came back from the Beijing Olympics. And because he was in Beijing, you know, they have a lot of electronics there,” recalls Sarah. Her father brought back a sampling of the latest technological devices for the family, she says, “and he even gave me a smartphone at that time.”

Coach Asare’s accomplishments as the trainer of the Black Bombers are as remarkable numerically as they are inspirational in a way that transcends sports. “He’s been in four Olympic cycles, won Ghana’s only—and Africa’s only—bronze medal with Samuel Takyi in 2020. This year they are preparing to go to the Commonwealth Games and I would say that currently the professional boxers that we have in Ghana that are doing well, definitely 99 percent of them have gone through his hands at some point,” says Sarah.

“He’s done so much, won over 150-something medals in different colors—gold, bronze, silver—and that is the quantifiable aspect,” Sarah explains. “But I think that the one thing that people have to see as his legacy is how he’s so affected many people’s lives in the form of being a coach and also by training coaches. Because several of the boxers that come to the gym, maybe they start training there around the ages of six and five and several of them, they have very little supervision or guidance at home and the gym is the place that they get all the discipline and even the focus on life that they need.”

(Sarah with her father, Coach Kwesi Ofori Asare)

While Sarah’s journey into the boxing world began by pursuing a scholarly route which in turn led her down an administrative path, her sister initially took a hands-on approach in the literal sense. “My dad actually did not want me to get involved in boxing,” she says. “He taught all of us but at the beginning stages, my younger sister, she was the boxer. She had the opportunity to be mentored by people like Lesley Sackey. She’s a British Ghanaian boxer. And a number of high profile Cuban coaches she had an opportunity to work with but when she went to senior high school, she decided not to do boxing. She’s currently in law school,” Sarah informed me. “The fundamental aspect of how I came into the sport was basically as an academic assignment to find out the reason or the rationale behind why people box and when I first started off, people did not know I was affiliated to my dad. So they would relate to me on a very neutral level and some would answer my questions, some would not, but I was resilient.”

Sarah’s resilience paid off in many ways, not the least of which was gaining a deeper appreciation for the immeasurable value placed upon her father by members of the boxing community and, even more importantly, the Ghanaian community. “I would say my dad played a very important role in me wanting to work in sports especially when I started doing a lot of my research. Speaking to different people about key players in the sport, his name kept coming up and those moments I felt very proud, like having such a person as my dad because people held him in very high regard and he had impacted the lives of so many people,” she says.

“As I was speaking to different people, not even people from his own club but people from different clubs, coaches, referees, officials, different people, and at the time, they didn’t even know who I was. So they were being very honest, looking at the work that he was doing and how he’s able to impact the life of other people. And as a person, I’m also interested in social work,” Sarah continues. “I felt that boxing would give me this avenue to be able to impact the lives of other people, especially seeing that my dad is able to do that. Even up to now he’s one of the people I look up to because every day he’s always put a human face to everything. He doesn’t look at boxers just as projects that need to be featured. He always tries to make sure that whatever he does with the fighter, he’s able to change their life and also impact those around them.”

Sarah’s term paper on boxing for the University of Ghana, where she graduated with a BA and MPhil in Archaeology and is working towards her PhD in Museum and Heritage Studies, provided the point of entry to what has evolved into a lifelong commitment to the sport she has grown up around and learned to love with a passion that matches her father’s. Over the course of time, she took on an increasingly active role within the Wisdom Boxing Gym which Sarah says, “focuses heavily on youth development, athlete visibility, women’s participation in sport, and creating opportunities for young boxers both locally and internationally” through initiatives that merge boxing with education, media, tourism, and community development.

As Organizing Secretary for the Greater Accra Boxing Association (GABA), Sarah originated the Girls Box Tournament and the Books B4 Hooks program. Footballer turned martial artist and boxer Janet Acquah, who hails from the impoverished fishing village of Chorkor, caught Sarah’s attention when she competed in the inaugural Girls Box event. After being scouted by Asare, Janet would go on to become the first female boxer to medal at the All African Games and win a bout representing Ghana at the 2024 Olympic qualifiers in Senegal. Acquah has one professional MMA fight under her belt (a 2025 submission defeat to Felista Mugo) and is planning a transition to the paid ranks in boxing.     

(Sarah with Janet Acquah)

Sarah credits GABA official Alex Ntiamoah Boakye with thinking up the catchy name Books B4 Hooks, but otherwise it was her brainchild and pet project. “When I started working with the Greater Accra Boxing Association and I was given the opportunity to host events that I cared about, I wanted every event that I do to have a social impact aspect to it,” she related to me. “So, Books B4 Hooks came about when I did under-15 and under-17 tournaments and I gave them books before because I wanted to encourage the boxers at the time to go back to school, or to stay in school for those that were in school. Some of the things that we did at the time with my team was to hold the events on the weekend so that the boxers that are in school can participate. And also, in addition to the prizes, the boxers were given scholarships to cover their tuition and also equipment. Things that would foster the importance for them to know that you don’t only have to be a boxer that stays in the gym all day but you also have to learn the basic things of reading and writing. And it’s a principle that I live by.”

Which brings us back to Sarah’s book, B For Bukom. “It’s something that came up from the research that I did speaking to the different people. I realized that there are so many people in the sports who have impacted Ghana boxing over time from the coaches, the officials, the referees, but often the boxers are the only ones that people really recognize. So I was like, okay, how can I translate my research to a form that can be available to everyone? Something that children can read, something that parents can read to their children?” she mused. “And basically the book uses each of the alphabets to highlight some of the achievements and contributions that different individuals have done for the sport. For instance, when you go to the letter S, I have the Samir brothers. These are three brothers (Bastie, Issah, and Shakul) who have all represented Ghana at the Commonwealth Games and all qualified for the Olympics to represent Ghana. They’ve all won medals for Ghana at various tournaments.”  

As mentioned above, Sarah set out with B For Bukom to achieve more than just honor Ghana’s great boxers, but to also acknowledge those whose guidance was instrumental in making the fulfillment of their dreams possible. “What I did was to create a table where I’ve written down the names of each of the boxers that are really celebrated, and I put by them the coaches that trained them and the clubs that they are from. So that when people see these boxers, they don’t just see them in isolation but they also see the individuals that were behind them, that helped with their successes that are often not recognized.”

Why did Sarah choose to tell the history of Ghanaian boxing in the form of a children’s chapter book? To her, the answer is elementary. “Because I wanted it to be something that educates young people right from the beginning. Because boxing is an important aspect of our heritage here. And I also want to encourage children to read. So by putting it in the form of reading, it’s just putting something that they love in an activity of reading,” Sarah says. “The book is designed to educate Ghanaian children beyond boxing because it gives you real life instances for you to see things that individuals have done, things that you can apply in your life even when you are not taking the part of boxing. It shows things of resilience, family ties, commitments, passion, and discipline. And pioneership, like all of these, are values that we can all benefit from.”

Currently serving as Executive Secretary of WBC Cares Africa, as well as the Ghana Boxing Federation where her duties include not only organizing grassroots movements but supervising the National Boxing Team coached by her father, Sarah also manages Theophilus Allotey, who is undefeated as a professional at 14-0 (11KOs), holds the WBO Africa bantamweight, Ghana National super-flyweight, UBO Continental super-flyweight, and WBO Global super-flyweight titles, and is ranked #10 worldwide in the 115-pound division. 

Sarah additionally lays claim to the distinction of being Ghana’s first female matchmaker, “helping organize and support professional boxing events in a traditionally male-dominated space,” as she details her personal responsibility. She is understandably gratified by the reality that her prominent role in Ghanaian boxing “represents a growing shift toward greater female representation in the sport’s leadership structures” in addition to the fact that she has become “known for advocating for safer, more inclusive, and development-focused boxing conversations” and “emphasizes discipline, technical development, mental strength, and cultural significance over violence and sensationalism.”

There is an African proverb that says, “A single tree cannot make a forest.” By helping nourish the cultural landscape of her beloved motherland through boxing, reading, community engagement, and female empowerment, Sarah Lotus Asare is doing more than her part to ensure that Ghana stands together and stands strong as a formidable presence on the world stage. Just like the proverbial forest—a welcoming environment for everyone to explore, learn about, and learn from.  

(Sarah and team celebrating a victory with Theophilus Allotey)