Britt VanBuskirk's Long and Winding Road: Part Four—Sumya Anani Trilogy and Closing Thoughts

 

Her comeback now set in motion, however unceremoniously, Britt fought on a dozen subsequent occasions over the next thirteen months. The results were a mixed bag of wins over previously unbeaten boxers like Dianna Lewis, Daisy Ocasio, and Dana Bates in a rematch, and losses to Jeanne Martinez (twice), Sabrina Hall, Suzette Taylor, Daniele Doobenen, and Dana Bates in their first fight. VanBuskirk held future world champion Isra Girgrah to a four-round draw and had earlier dueled to a stalemate opposite Gina Nicholas.

By September 2000, Sumya Anani was 16-0 and was being mentioned in the same breath as Christy Martin and Lucia Rijker in the conversation regarding the best pound for pound female fighter by virtue of her headline-grabbing upset over Christy at the tail end of 1998. Not only did Anani, known as ‘The Island Girl,’ beat Martin, she beat her up. So badly in fact that she sent Christy to the hospital. Unable to corner Martin for a return engagement for reasons that will be explained shortly, Sumya jumped on whatever opportunity came her way, decisively outpunching and outpointing then-unbeaten Denise Moraetes and scoring a pair of victories over Cora Webber’s sister Dora.

“When the phone rang for Sumya I had streptococcus, strep throat. This time they gave me about one week’s notice, maybe even ten days,” Britt remembers. “I had heard that she had beaten Christy, so I knew that this would be an important and tough fight.”

The six-rounder between Anani and Van Buskirk was the co-headlining bout on a show held in the parking lot of Harrah’s Casino in St. Louis which featured Cory Spinks in the main event. Billed as ‘Knockout Night 3’ (presumably the third in a series), the card was staged by Tony Holden, who promoted Christy Martin’s future wife, Lisa Holewyne.      

Judging by the unflattering terminology used by Joe Miller in his feature for the Kansas City Pitch, there was no mistaking the fact that Britt was the B-side of this production while Sumya was very much the hit single racing up the charts. While he acknowledged that “VanBuskirk was once ranked the best woman fighter in the world,” Miller quickly dismissed this as “ancient history in the post-Christy Martin world.” Miller mocked Britt’s “mannish” crewcut which framed a face he said looked “chiseled and rough as a roadworn refugee’s.”

By night’s end, the joke would be on Joe Miller and everyone else who laughed VanBuskirk off as “a chump for hire” and “a has-been with a losing record.” To the surprise of all her snarky naysayers, Britt put the first scratch on Sumya’s formerly flawless record.   

“On the way to the fight, I practiced saying Sumya’s name,” reflects VanBuskirk. Phonetically pronounced “Suwm-ayah,” and meaning special or unique, it is indeed more than meets the eye. “Everything went smoothly until the bell rang. In the first round I was surprised at how easy she was to hit, and it went that way until the fourth round when I landed a smashing right hand right behind her ear and she went down,” Britt recounts.

“She tried to get up but fell over again. The referee was counting very slowly. When he was at 8, she was up but not capable of standing without the support of the ropes,” she continues. “I moved forward from the white corner. The referee waved me back to the corner and started to count again. Timewise, she got about a 15-count before he started the fight again. She should have been counted out right there with a knockout, but the referee saved her.” With just two rounds to go and the fight’s outcome hanging in the balance, VanBuskirk looked to press the advantage, which was easier said than done with Anani intent on switching gears from survival mode to attack mode.  

“She came back and fought like a wildcat. She landed some horrendous punches. Sumya is a tough customer,” Britt acknowledges. “She is in excellent shape and boxes very unorthodox because she switches from left to right with almost every punch, so it’s very hard to see every punch coming in. I always say it’s like fighting your little sister. Because of my reach I was able to control her, and we heard the final bell. When they were reading the scores, one judge had given the fight to Anani, and one had given it to me. The third judge was the man that came to my gym and certified it. He gave the fight to me.” The official scores were 57-56 Anani and 58-55, 57-56 VanBuskirk.   

“He later told me it wasn’t a split decision, it was a knockout. I had a couple of words with the referee,” says Britt. “When I went to pick up my money, Tony Holden said, ‘Congratulations. The winner of this fight goes against Lucia Rijker.’ Later I spoke with Sumya. She told me that she was sure that I was a boy and that’s why she lost.”

Embarrassed as she was at the risk of hurting Britt’s feelings, Sumya confirmed this for me during a recent phone conversation during which she gave me permission to print her remarks. “I was scared,” she confessed before elaborating on the backstory.

Don King had offered Anani a promotional contract after she had beaten Christy Martin and, despite people telling her that she was crazy to turn down that sort of lucrative opportunity, she was brazen and, in retrospect, wise enough to do exactly that. Surrender her professional independence for the glittering prizes and cash rewards? No thank you, Anani concluded. Not worth it in her estimation.

At the time, however, Sumya did fear what the fallout from rebuffing King might be. Perhaps so serious a consequence as being blackballed. “That did happen to a certain extent,” she told me. With no pay-per-view fights or extraordinary paydays forthcoming, she took what she could get and hoped for the best.

“I was in a bad headspace,” said Anani. So much so that, upon seeing VanBuskirk before their first fight, Sumya convinced herself that Don King was out to get her by setting her up to fight a man. Not that she is making excuses for the loss, but Anani offers nevertheless, “Mentally, I just wasn’t there that night.”

A practitioner and instructor in yoga and meditation before, during, and after her boxing career, Sumya stressed to me the power of the mind. “The mind can be our best friend or our worst enemy,” she said during our talk. Ideally, the individual’s goal in boxing, martial arts, meditation, yoga, and life itself, she proposed, is to achieve through constant and diligent practice a vital symmetry between body and mind. This will allow us to adapt to adversity and continue to evolve as human beings.  

“Fear is such an awesome motivator,” Sumya went on to theorize. “It all depends on how we channel it.” The perfect juxtaposition, she illustrated, was how she used fear in her favor to defeat Christy Martin, as opposed to succumbing to it before she even stepped between the ropes to touch gloves with Britt.      

Anani’s lifelong trainer and mentor Barry Becker was reportedly disconsolate after the loss to VanBuskirk, sure that they had just blown their shot at a potential rematch with Christy Martin or a legacy-building fight against Lucia Rijker. Ultimately, neither option would pan out for Sumya, as Rijker and Martin fruitlessly chased each other around the country for the next five years on what Anani would sarcastically refer to as the “money train.” VanBuskirk would not be awarded the promised fight with Rijker either.

Instead, Britt and Anani would again find themselves matched opposite one another thirteen months later. And with a world championship on the line. In the meantime, though, VanBuskirk fought for two other world titles, losing on points to Marischa Sjauw for the vacant IBA super-lightweight championship and then to Gina Guidi with the brand new WIBA welterweight strap up for grabs.    

“When the call came for the Anani rematch it was against Lisa Holewyne first, which she denies to this day,” claims VanBuskirk. “I had a contract to fight Lisa Holewyne, and the promoter called and said he was going to switch opponents. He was going to replace Lisa Holewyne with Sumya Anani. I said, ‘That is quite an upgrade.’ Come to find out Lisa took a fight with Christy and left me with Anani.” Britt would eventually tangle with Holewyne, three times no less, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

“About four days away from the fight, my girlfriend comes in, sits down, and says, ‘Are you focused for the fight?’ I said, ‘Yes, I believe I am focused.’ She said, ‘Good, I’m leaving as soon as we get home from the fight,’” recounts VanBuskirk. “I went to the fight, cried the whole way there and home.”

Not that the breakup of a relationship is ever fun or convenient, but for Britt her partner’s revelation couldn’t have come at a worse time. Her return bout against Sumya was the main event on a show held at the Seven Feathers Casino Resort in Canyonville, Oregon. Legendary pioneer of the sport Barbara Buttrick was on hand that evening in the role of acting supervisor representing the GBU (Global Boxing Union) to personally bestow their inaugural World Welterweight Title belt to the victor. “It was so cool getting to meet Barbara Buttrick,” enthuses Sumya.       

“Anani was out for blood,” VanBuskirk exclaims emphatically. “I had recently handed her the most painful thing a prizefighter can endure (her first defeat), and she was out to right it. I was tired when the first bell rang. She came at me like something out of an Alien movie. She knocked me from one corner of the ring to the other for ten rounds.” If it wasn’t bad enough having to fend off Sumya’s relentless attacks, Britt’s thoughts and emotions were elsewhere. Again, the power of the mind comes into play.

“I was somehow able to remove myself from the fight,” she says. “I remember the tenth round, she tried to knock me out. She threw everything she had. Some landed too, many actually, but I finished on my feet. I have never been knocked down, not even in the gym. Sumya Anani deserved to win that day and won a world championship that she also deserved. I got what I deserved. A rematch.”

And on February 1, 2002, a rematch there would be. “After the second Anani fight, I was in my 40s and ready to call it a career. After Sharla left, I didn’t have anyone to work my corner or even a sparring partner. It was a very lonesome time for me. I felt empty. I had lost my third world championship fight and my girlfriend of four years in one day. It seemed that all I wanted was a rematch with Anani,” reflects Britt.

“Four months later the phone rang, and I got the offer for a rematch with Anani. I took it. A six-rounder in Oklahoma City. Friday Night Fights on ESPN. In my opinion it was a good fight,” VanBuskirk says. “Anani won, but I beat her up. That’s the best way to describe it. She won fair and square, but I hit her with some big right hands and split her eyebrow open.” Injury notwithstanding, Sumya swept the judges’ scorecards for a unanimous 80-72 verdict in her favor.

“I went home and decided to stop boxing forever, a hard thing to do,” states VanBuskirk. “But my phone rang with an offer to fight Lisa Holewyne. I asked, ‘Why don’t you get Anani?’ They said because she’s suspended because of a cut over her eye for sixty days. I thought to myself, damn she won and is suspended and I’m not! I won!  I’ll take the fight. It was six rounds against Lisa Holewyne in Texas. She won and I moved on from boxing. To the Hall of Fame!”

Britt was inducted into the International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame as a member of their Class of 2016 in the company of her old friend Lady Tyger Trimiar, as well as Jane Couch, Elena Reid, Ann-Marie Saccurato, Giselle Salandy, Jackie Kallen, and her three-time ring foe, Sumya Anani. 

Sumya made sure to point out to me her feelings toward Britt as “a good person and a great fighter.” The two have gotten to reconnect from time to time throughout the years at various functions and on social media. “What a career she had,” says Sumya admiringly. “Someone should write a book about her. I’m sure she’s got so many great stories to tell.”

Indeed, she does. We’ve barely scratched the surface here.

 

Postscript

“I’d go buy myself a big yacht and sail away, never to be heard from again,” Britt mused in 1983 when asked what she would do if she were able to make enough money from boxing to live comfortably.

This didn’t happen, of course. Neither fame and fortune nor seafaring anonymity were in the cards for VanBuskirk, although by design she has existed largely off the grid since hanging up her boxing gloves.

Taking her sixteen-year sabbatical into consideration, Britt’s career went on to span a quarter-century and crossed over multiple generations of female prizefighters, from blazing trails shoulder to shoulder with Lady Tyger, Squeaky Bayardo, Cora Webber, Julie Mullen, and Dulce Lucas to competing decades later against the likes of Lucia Rijker, Isra Girgrah, Lisa Holewyne, Chevelle Hallback, and Sumya Anani.    

“Boxing is very near and dear to me. I understand it intimately. When I look back, I am glad that I had the vision I had at such a young age. I felt that females had the right to fight, and we had to fight for that right so now there can be such a thing as Beautiful Brawlers and females boxing at the Olympic games,” testifies VanBuskirk in closing.  

“It’s much more than I expected in my lifetime. The proudest thing in my life is that I was where I was when I was, to join the people that I did in a movement that gave a heartbeat to women’s boxing. I don’t think it is understood how hard the pioneers’ work was and the sacrifices made so that boxing can be what it is today,” she continues.

“I have seen women’s boxing go from not being allowed in the gym to me fighting the main event to men fighting on our undercards. That’s a long way! My hope is that it is not mishandled like pot-grabbing for fame, that the training standards improve. Now anybody with a pair of mitts thinks they are a trainer. This is a fatal mistake for a lot of the folks coming up. It will result in a very short time in the ring. So, treat boxing like a little infant baby because that is what it is, and it will go where we lead it. Boxing will always give back.”

 

Sources:

Author Interviews with Britt VanBuskirk and Sumya Anani

Boxrec.com

Britt VanBuskirk Ring Record (supplied to author by Sue Fox)

Robert Enstad. This Boxer is So Good She Frightens Off Foes (Chicago Tribune, May 1, 1983)

Mike Estel. This Woman Really Packs a Punch (Southern Illinoisan, March 20, 1983)

Sue Fox. Fight Night at the Seven Feathers with Sumya Anani Facing Britt VanBuskirk for GBU World Title (WBAN October 21, 2001—accessed at http://www.wbanmember.com/fight-report-sumya-anani-vs-britt-vanbuskirk/)

Joe Miller. To Her, With Glove (Kansas City Pitch, September 28, 2000)

La Canada’s Women’s’ Boxing Champ (WBB News, January 1980)

Amateur Boxers Flocking to Gym in Carbondale (Bloomington Pantagraph, June 13, 1995)

The AX Forum: Female Thai Boxing History (http://message.axkickboxing.com/index.phtml?action=dispthread&topic=24359&junk=1209591760.9093)

1979: Britt VanBuskirk, pro boxer vs. Kickboxer from Japan (in Japan) About 1979. Britt won by KO (uploaded to YouTube by WBAN100, October 22, 2020—accessed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doqrK_MbsyQ)

Britt VanBuskirk's Long and Winding Road: Part Three—Lucia Rijker and Moon Over Miami

 

With her prizefighting opportunities having unfortunately dried up for the foreseeable future, Britt enlisted in the Army, spending six years with the National Guard, and additionally took up rugby. “I ended up playing twenty-two seasons, two seasons a year,” she says. “So, I played eleven years, and went on to coach for five seasons.” Unable to ignore her boxing instincts, she also kept fit to fight by making use of the SIU Recreation Center where she would jump rope and hit the heavy bag.

In 1995, VanBuskirk opened a boxing gym in Carbondale called Tough Enough. “I took around six of my best friends to St. Louis and we took tests and we all got USA Boxing certified so I could run my own shows at the gym. A man came from St. Louis from USA Boxing and supervised a fight night we put on and then gave my gym a certificate,” recalls Britt, whose primary objective was getting troubled youths interested in fighting in the ring rather than in the streets. “Every other Friday night we had fight night. The gym was a popular place and we changed lives there,” she says with understandable and well-deserved pride. Tough Enough boasted a membership of right around 100, a dozen of whom, including three women, were mentored by Britt.

Little did she know then that change was in the air, and the very near future would find her involved in the fight game not just as a teacher but, once again, as a practitioner. Along came Christy Martin and, with her arrival on the scene, a resurgence of interest in women’s boxing which eventually pulled open the curtain on the second act in VanBuskirk’s lengthy pugilistic career.

“I turned on the TV and there was the Martin vs. Gogarty fight. I was very surprised!” she exclaims. “The fight was great to the unknowing eye, but Martin was much bigger than Gogarty and Martin bullied Gogarty around the ring. Gogarty fought a great fight and made the fight by hanging in there. But Christy came out of the fight a superstar.”

Despite the fact that the Gogarty fight and the Sports Illustrated cover story that resulted from it made an overnight sensation of Christy Martin, women’s boxing in general still struggled for mainstream recognition and acceptance.  

“This is where it starts to get tricky,” illustrates Britt. “In my mind, people have to show up and fight so the public can see women’s boxing. If no one will fight, the sport won’t make it. We must get out there and fight.”

The motivations and methodologies of Don King have always been as questionable and controversial as the promoter himself—the one with the unmistakably Barnumesque flair for showmanship, trademark nursery rhyme ballyhoo, and a hairdo that resembles a Halloween fright wig. Nevertheless, Van Buskirk is willing to give credit where she feels it is due.

“Don King did the biggest service to women’s boxing when he decided to start to allowing women to fight on his televised boxing cards,” Britt opines. “With the world watching, women’s boxing became very popular just like we always knew it would. Don must have been listening. In Don King style, champions are made not born, and unfortunately his choice for our slot were Jim and Christy Martin.” Aesthetically speaking, the pairing of King with the Martins appeared to be a match made in Heaven. And it was, until it wasn’t. As with many marriages both personal and professional, there was trouble in Paradise.  

“These two were played right into Don’s hands. Both were arrogant with large mouths that demanded attention,” VanBuskirk elaborates. “Christy was a raw-mouthed twenty-something youngster that couldn’t say anything right. Don kept televising her fights, and over the years she became a good boxer. But with it came trouble. Drugs, attempted murder, and prison. On this level, the sport was dragged around once again but it was resuscitated by Laila Ali. She spun better than Martin and had a bigger name in the sport. She really gave the sport the spokeswoman it needed. She stayed within her boundaries and kept the Ali name shining and encouraged a lot of youth to the sport. Overall, I must thank Don King for the hand up he gave women’s boxing. He had the vision to do what was right and then stayed out of it.”

Despite a few serious flirtations with a high-visibility comeback fight for Britt opposite Christy Martin, ultimately it was not to be. “My phone rang maybe three separate times for fights with her,” she estimates. “All three times the fights fell through.”

However, after sixteen years away from boxing, VanBuskirk, the former California State welterweight champion who had racked up knockout wins like it was second nature in the 1970s, would eventually mount a return. Her short-notice opponent would be none other than Martin’s chief antagonist, the ‘Dutch Destroyer’ Lucia Rijker.

“In 1999, I was sitting at my favorite bar and the pay phone rang. I was sitting right next to it, so I answered it. It was Marshall Christopher. Marshall said he had a fight for me,” recalls VanBuskirk. Marshall was a Chicago-based manager and trainer whose wife Chris Kreuz had been knocked out by Christy Martin in her fourth pro fight five years earlier. “He seemed desperate, so I asked who. He said Lucia Rijker.”

Britt was so far removed from the boxing scene at that point that she had never heard of her, but the promise of a $6,000 purse for a six-round fight was not one to be taken lightly. Besides having no prior knowledge of Rijker, who in April 1999 was 12-0 with only one of those wins going the distance, there were two other troubling factors. For starters, time was most definitely of the essence, as the bout was scheduled to take place in only three days.

The other crisis was an existential one, which saw VanBuskirk having to cope with the tragic passing of her beloved trainer and mentor, Howard McCord. “By this time, Tyger had called me and told me that the pride of my life had died of bone cancer,” Britt remembers. “Howard was gone forever. I miss him to this very day.”

Nevertheless, Britt heeded the call to arms, rationalizing her decision by thinking to herself, “Damn here’s another fight that won’t go off if I don’t show up.” Marshall hastily secured VanBuskirk a train ticket to Chicago where she had to play a game of beat the clock to get the necessary documentation in order.

“When I got to Chicago he sent me to the boxing commission to get my federal ID. The head commissioner was not happy to see me. He said, ‘Why are you here and who the hell is Marshall Christopher?’ I knew I would need an EEG to get my license and didn’t have the $500 to get one,” Britt explains. Her solution to this dilemma was creative, if not legal.

“Before I left, I made my own off one I had from another fighter by whiting out the name and putting in mine, then copying it,” says VanBuskirk. “Because I was so prepared, it mellowed him. I explained I was a female that was heading to a fight, and by the time I left his office I had his blessings.” While she is well aware of how harshly this sort of illicit activity might be judged these days, Britt contends that to have a complete understanding of the situation, you simply had to be there to experience firsthand the survival-of-the-fittest-type conditions the previous eras of female fighters were often forced to compete under in the daily struggle just to get by, much less evolve. “Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she says.

VanBuskirk had only one day to prepare herself for Rijker, which she did at the Windy City Gym, before departing the next morning for O’Hare Airport to catch her flight to Florida. The airline lost Britt’s luggage, the result of which would give new meaning to “Moon Over Miami” at that afternoon’s weigh-in. 

“I was so late getting to the weigh-in that they wouldn’t allow me to go to my hotel room first, instead insisting I go straight to the weigh-in,” recounts VanBuskirk. “I had no underwear on. I told the weigh master my problem. He said, ‘Just hold a towel up in front of you.’ They did, but there was a restaurant behind us with a big window and when I dropped my pants all the people that were eating in the restaurant got a huge viewing of my bare butt.”

A natural welterweight, Britt weighed in at 145, five pounds over the junior-welterweight limit, which was overlooked. It was an anomaly with her typically perfect blood pressure, no doubt due to all the less than ideal extenuating circumstances, that put the bout in jeopardy. Despite the temporary scare caused by the initial reading, prompting the doctor to disallow her to fight for fear that she would die in the ring, he agreed to take a second, and this time normal, test in the more relaxed atmosphere of her hotel room fifteen minutes later. Not only would the fight go on, but Britt learned that it would be televised on Fox Sports. 

“I saw Lucia in the hall. She spoke to me. She recognized my last name as being Dutch. I agreed that it was,” says VanBuskirk of her brief pre-fight interaction with Rijker. “She’s smaller than I, with a thick accent. That’s all I knew about her. I passed my time alone.”

Marshall Christopher was supposed to work Britt’s corner but was missing in action on fight night. “I found a Mexican man and asked him to help me. He said ok,” she recalls. “He started to warm me up on the mitts. I could tell that he took Lucia very seriously. He could tell I wasn’t in shape, and he kept telling me to watch out for the left hook.”

VanBuskirk had gone from barstool to boxing stool in three days and was being instructed by a stranger wandering through the locker rooms of the Miccosukee Indian Gaming Resort. Lucia Rijker, on the other hand, was being guided by the great Freddie Roach and prepping for a potential super-fight opposite Christy Martin.   

“Archie Moore and Howard were friends,” says Britt about the legendary Old Mongoose and her recently deceased trainer. “Archie used to come to the gym and watch me spar. Archie told me to always throw the first punch and from that day I always did. So, I went out there and threw a couple jabs. They both landed and from there it went downhill. In the second round she came after me, but I fought back and landed a right hand. That really pissed her off. She threw me in a head lock and stuffed her glove up my nose a couple times. She got a warning from the referee for holding and hitting.”

It didn’t take long for things to go from bad to worse. “I began to tire. In the third round she hit me with a left hook. It buckled my knees, and I recognized the beginning of the end for me,” admits VanBuskirk. “It’s a very scary situation. It will send the toughest person into uncontrollable fear. You see your whole life go circling down the toilet and can’t do anything about it but take more punishment until it’s finally over.”  

A fighter’s first loss, especially one so devastating in nature, is unthinkably difficult to process, as Britt articulates. “It’s like watching someone die in front of you that you love, and you realize for the first time there are some things in life that are beyond your control. It all happens very, very fast and stays intimately close for the rest of your life. It’s so hard some people quit,” she philosophizes. “I was in a complete daze. I felt six inches tall. When I got off the plane my friends were there to pick me up. I was so shocked that they still liked me. I said, ‘I lost in front of you,’ and they said, Hell we don’t care. We are just proud of you for going. We turned on the TV and there you were, Britt, on TV.’ They gave me a group hug. I felt alive again and part of this world, but I still feel it (the knockout loss) to this day.”

What did VanBuskirk do with the purse money? “I went home and paid off a DUI,” she says. “Thank you, Lucia Rijker.”

Britt VanBuskirk's Long and Winding Road: Part Two—Julie Mullen, Dulce Lucas, and Tour of Japan

With two successful trips to Japan under her belt, VanBuskirk would finally get to perform before an audience of American fight fans for the first time. Britt would receive no pushover for her US debut at the Hyatt Hotel in Lake Tahoe on April 12, 1979. Standing in the opposing corner would be the unbeaten Nevada State welterweight champion Julie Mullen, who had earned that honor by knocking out Lavonne Ludian seven months prior. Mullen’s title would not be on the line.

“Julie had been boxing for a while and had some fights,” remarks VanBuskirk today. Among Mullen’s impressive victories were a pair of unanimous decisions over Toni Lear Rodriguez. “I was a tremendous underdog with no fights showing. It was a tense time for me because of all the chatter about Julie’s skills and me having none,” Britt elaborates further. “I saw her in the elevator and asked if she would have a beer with me after the fight. She said, ‘I will have six with you.’ Once again, I could hear Howard’s voice telling me to work my jab when the time comes, and when you see the opening throw the right hand. Follow it with a left hook, step back with a stiff jab. These things I did in the first round. In the second round, I landed a beautiful bunch of jabs and I saw fear in her eyes. It was time to do as Howard said, so I stepped in with the combination. The right hand landed, and she went down cold in the second round. I never saw her again. Back at the gym, Howard was smiling from ear to ear.”

At the time, Van Buskirk remarked to the Women’s Boxing Board publication WBB News, “It was the happiest moment of my life when the ref counted ten over Julie. I knew then that boxing was my life.” Mullen fought just once more, a points win over novice Blanca Rodriguez ten months later.

Already having staged the first all-female boxing card at the Hawthorne Memorial Center on February 11, 1979, promoter Sammy Sanders was audaciously arranging another in quick order, this time headlined by a California State Championship Triple Crown at the Los Angeles Sports Arena on July 13. “It was a big, big deal for women’s boxing,” remembers VanBuskirk. “They started to put the card together, and I was worried that I wouldn’t get the chance to fight but turned out to be the main event.”

With the bill also featuring Lady Tyger Trimiar battling Ernestine Jones, Squeaky Bayardo facing Ginate Troy (a late replacement for Toni Bryant), and renowned martial artist Graciela Casillas making her pro boxing debut opposite Karen Bennett, Toni Lear Rodriguez would square off against Lilli Rodriguez with the featherweight title on the line while Cora Webber was scheduled to take on Carlotta Lee for the super-featherweight crown.

Vying for the California State welterweight championship before a crowd of 2,500 at the LA Sports Arena, Britt’s rival wound up being a familiar face. Specifically, that of ‘Sweet’ Dulce Lucas, a California prizefighter by way of Puerto Rico who had KO’d Valerie Ganther on the Hawthorne show and begun showing up at the Hoover St. Gym when not working out of her crosstown home base at the Main Street Gym, which had since started allowing women to train there. Even the Olympic Gym, where Britt had been initially turned away, now bestowed admittance to females, the most prominent of which was Graciela Casillas.   

“I wanted to box with her,” says Britt about first seeing Dulce Lucas at Hoover St. “I asked my trainer if I could, and he said no. I felt sad and mad because he wouldn’t let me. She kept coming and he kept saying no until finally one day he said yes.” There’s an old idiom that warns to be careful what you wish for, and Lucas taught VanBuskirk this lesson the hard way.

“I got in the ring and out on the same bell. She hit me so hard to the body I could taste blood. I didn’t last a round,” she confesses. “Howard had to stop the sparring session. I went home and cried that night in my dinner plate, threw my jabs, and went to bed, woke up and got back on the bus.”

Britt had something of an epiphany during one of her many interminable bus rides to the Hoover St. Gym, coming to the realization one morning that she was beyond a shadow of a doubt ready for Dulce Lucas after putting in countless hours of hard time both at the gym and her workplace.                                       

“Dee Knuckles made me move closer to the gym. I lived in Watts in a store that was owned by a man named Ted Gambino. After training, I worked in the store at the cash register behind a bullet proof window,” reflects VanBuskirk. “Every morning, Howard would come throw rocks at my window at about 6am. It was time to run. He took me to a park, and I ran three miles then I had to shadow box in a sand pit for fifteen minutes. Howard had another fighter with me, a heavyweight, and he would always dog out and go sit down. I kept going because I would think, ‘What if you quit and your opponent keeps going?’ That would scare the crap out of me, and motivation set in.” There was an additional incentive to beating Dulce Lucas, courtesy of her employer. “Ted Gambino had a motorcycle for sale, and I wanted it but was short on cash. The cost was $600. Ted told me if I won the fight he would give it to me.”

Already beyond delighted with his pupil’s determination and work ethic, Britt’s trainer Howard McCord would be in her corner for the first time against Dulce Lucas. The result would be a far cry from that of their Hoover St. Gym sparring session, but by no means would arriving at that abbreviated end point be a walk in the park. 

“I remember going toe to toe with her in the first round. She came at me like a mad woman, throwing bombs from everywhere. Big, big right hands. With Howard in my corner, I was able to stay on the game plan,” VanBuskirk recalls. “She threw a lot, and I made her miss and countered. In the third round, she caught me with something. Don’t know what it was, but it was big. I don’t think I have seen stars since that day. Maybe when Rijker cheap shotted me.”

“But it buckled my knees,” Britt continued on the subject of being on the receiving end of Lucas’ shot. “All of a sudden, my knees would not lock and I saw bright stars. Then I could see again and my knees held me. I went to the corner and Howard said, ‘You got hit, that’s all.’ I was tired and scared. The other second broke an amyl nitrate tab under my nose.”

For those of us who have never found ourselves in a similar predicament and are curious to know what the aftereffects of absorbing such a powerful punch feel like, Britt elaborates on the sensation. “Being staggered is a very scary situation. It’s as if you have no legs willing to hold you and is impossible to train for. Thank goodness it passes quickly,” she says. “The smelling salt is awful too, but it does something amazing. It makes you become part of this world again.”

The commencement of round four brought with it a turning of the tide, and VanBuskirk rode on the crest of a wave for the remainder of the fight. “Dulce came in for the kill but was in a hurry, underestimating my worth and Howard’s skill. She started to make big mistakes, dropping her hands to run in and swinging from her hip. I was able to avoid everything she threw,” she tells me. “When I went to the corner, Howard was able to pinpoint her mistakes and coach me to victory. He told me exactly what to do.”

McCord’s instructions, which had never let Britt down before, were right on the money yet again. “Keep your composure…she’s tired…she’s swinging from everywhere…make your blocks…keep your range…when you see the big, wide opening that I can see from here, throw your right hand…follow with a combination, and step back with a jab.”

With Howard’s mantras swirling around in her reanimated brain, VanBuskirk got up off her stool and got down to business. “I began to hit her with everything I threw. Everything was landing, and she began to fade,” Britt remembers. She vividly recalls Lucas’ corner throwing in the towel before the bell signaling the beginning of round six.

Having won the California State welterweight championship by technical knockout, VanBuskirk jumped around the ring like a kernel of corn popping on a stovetop skillet, lifting up Howard McCord and doing a victory lap from corner to corner with him in her arms.

As for the woman she just conquered who had hit her so hard on two separate occasions that she saw stars and had cried at her dinner table, Britt proudly affirms, “Dulce Lucas never fought again.”

Between October and November 1979, VanBuskirk once again returned to Japan, this time for a six-week tour and without the accompaniment of her manager. “Dee had a family with two boys and a husband named Bob. He worked as a longshoreman at the San Pedro harbor. Because of this, she said she would be sending me alone,” explains Britt. “I would be gone six weeks. She could not be gone from her family that long.” In addition to earning $600 a week, VanBuskirk would have her food, housing, and transportation taken care of by New World Wrestling and Martial Arts, the outfit that organized and funded the excursion.

“On the plane over there, I met a woman named Liz Miller. She told me that she was a WWF wrestler who was traveling with four other wrestlers, and we were going to be working for the same company and going on the same tour,” Britt says, reflecting on her extended stay in the Land of the Rising Sun.

“Some weeks we just hung around the hotel. Others we rode on a tour bus to every island in Japan, some weeks fighting four times, others only two, or none. The bus was loaded on to a ferry boat with us and the Japanese fighting team. We all rode together,” she continues. “I made many friends and saw things I would have never seen had I not gone. We slept on a floor made of rice paper and had to change shoes constantly. A car with a speaker on the roof traveled with us to announce that we were in town and the fights would be tonight. At the arena, everyone had to remove their shoes and put them in a big bookcase then find them when leaving. There was no power and they heated the arena with propane blowers. I saw Japanese people working in rice fields with big round hats. The bus had to wind up mountain roads so narrow, the wrestling team got off and walked to the top. I stayed on and laughed at them. I fought twelve times while I was there this time. I will never forget the time I spent in Japan and consider myself lucky to have gone.”

Earlier that year, between her bouts with Julie Mullen and Dulce Lucas, Britt had fought Shima Miyako, who she faced four times during her tour of Japan, at a high school gym in Clovis, New Mexico. “After that, we all went to Disneyland,” VanBuskirk recalls. “Dee Knuckles took us.” 

The pressure with which the brakes were applied to the perceptible gain in momentum that women’s boxing was enjoying at that moment perplexes VanBuskirk to this day. “It would seem that women’s boxing was here to stay, but oddly no other women’s cards were made. We all trained daily. The gyms began to fill with women,” she attests. “Bob Arum was the big promoter in LA. He would not promote any women’s boxing at the Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles, saying about the same crap he does today. He’s a real creep. He would only promote Mia St. John at the Playboy Mansion. Much time passed with no fights for any of us.”

Having befriended Ken Norton and Archie Moore, and made the acquaintance of Danny Lopez and Sugar Ray Leonard, along the way, VanBuskirk would subsequently remain absent from the prize ring until 1983 when she would knock out Gwen Gemini in the third round at a Fort Worth honkytonk joint called Billy Bob’s for a $500 payday.

“You just can’t realize how hard it is for me to get opponents,” Britt told sportswriter Mike Estel at the time. “If I was a man, I’d be turning fights down right now and still be making all kinds of money.” Instead, VanBuskirk worked as a bouncer at a nightspot popular with the unruly college crowd in Carbondale, Illinois where she had relocated when her stepmother accepted a position as an English professor at Southern Illinois University.

“They need to start televising more women’s boxing,” VanBuskirk complained to Mike Estel in his piece for the Southern Illinoisian. “A lot of people would watch it if they knew it was on TV. And a lot of women would probably start getting into it too.”  

Britt VanBuskirk's Long and Winding Road: Part One—Back and Forth to the Gym and Japan

 

“I rode the RTD (Rapid Transit District) bus in LA two and a half hours each way six days a week,” says Britt VanBuskirk about her grueling conveyance to and from the Hoover St. Gym, South Central’s legendary Cradle of Boxing Champions, in the late 1970s. “The bus left at 9:30 am, got me to the gym at noon when the gym was empty. The last bus left the gym at 6:00.”

This left little to no time for pursuits of any other kind. “Eat dinner, practice my jabs,” Britt says matter-of-factly of her early post-gym routine back in her hometown of La Cañada, a small city in Southern California’s San Gabriel Valley nestled in the shadows of the Verdugo mountains. “I had to throw 100 jabs before bed.”

A long and lean 17 year-old, VanBuskirk had first gone to the Olympic Gym in downtown Los Angeles where she asked if they could teach her how to box. Olympic doorman and gatekeeper Caesar Perez informed her that females were not allowed to train there, but suggested that she contact Dee Knuckles, who worked with women in her ramshackle gym located in the basement of a San Pedro Social Services building that was once an Army/Navy YMCA but was converted into housing for troubled youths.    

“I called her, and she invited me to her gym that day,” Britt remembers. It was Knuckles who took VanBuskirk to the Hoover St. Gym which was not only much better equipped but permitted women, a scarce advantage back then. It was at the Hoover St. Gym, owned and operated by former middleweight fighter Thell Torrence, whose claim to fame was earning a 1965 split draw with Denny Moyer at the Olympic Auditorium, that Dee Knuckles introduced her new protégé to trainer Howard McCord.

“Dee set me up with him, told me to come to this gym every day and meet with him and learn to box,” Britt recounted for me. “She also told me that she would be my manager and get fights for me when the time came. I did as she said.”

Among McCord’s roughly dozen and a half pupils, VanBuskirk was the lone female. For the time being, anyway. Not long after, featherweight phenom Lydia ‘Squeaky’ Bayardo, who had already been boxing for two years, would be one of several remarkable female boxers to join their ranks, becoming Britt’s primary sparring partner and moral supporter.

Cora Webber and Lady Tyger Trimiar would also soon turn into mainstays at the Hoover St. Gym. “She was the most recognized female fighter,” Britt enthused about Lady Tyger. “We became friends instantly. I went to her apartment once just to visit. She lived in Compton.” Britt, Tyger, and Webber would all later train at Thell Torrence’s new gym at the intersection of 108^th Street and Broadway in Watts referred to by either name (108^th Street Gym, or Broadway Gym) depending on which direction you were approaching from, explains VanBuskirk.

Britt’s main man when it came to spar mates at the Hoover St. Gym was Randy McGrady. A former Cleveland District and Northern Ohio Inter-City Golden Gloves champion, he was then a middleweight prospect who would end up with an 11-4 pro record. McGrady’s encouragement was a much-needed and much-appreciated shot in the arm for VanBuskirk.  

As was the norm back then, gyms were not equipped with separate changing facilities or restrooms for women and Britt confirms that this was the case at Hoover St. Assuming the gym bathrooms had doors, they never had locks. This is why Howard would strategically position a lookout on the other side of the dressing room door while VanBuskirk was inside.

“I ran into a lot of men who tried to discourage me when I first began fighting, but I still kept going back to the gymnasium,” she told Mike Estel of the Southern Illinoisan in a 1983 interview. “A lot of them changed their opinions of me and started respecting me when they found out how serious I was about it. But there are still a few jerks who don’t think women should fight. The jerks that ride me don’t realize I train every day to fight and I could tear their heads off if I wanted to.”

Her father Owen was not simply accepting of Britt’s boxing career, but enthusiastically supportive. “She is number one in the world. There is no doubt about it,” he is quoted as saying to Robert Enstad in the May 1, 1983 edition of the Chicago Tribune. “There is Britt and there is the rest of them.”    

McCord coached VanBuskirk on how to grapple with the physical as well as cerebral aspects of the fight game. “My trainer Howard taught me to box, but also taught me how to be a champion and how to get to the top and stay there. The first year we practiced defense only. He demanded a solid defense. I was impossible to hit,” she states in no uncertain terms. “He would tell me that one day I would be a champion. I didn’t believe him. And we argued about it. He would tell me that I don’t have enough belief in myself and that would be the hardest part about training me. I argued with him, saying he was just saying that to give me false hope. He argued back, saying one day they will not even box you. He said they will give you every excuse—your arms are too long, you’re too tall, you’re too short, you weigh too much, you’re too light, your eyes are the wrong color—but they will not box you. This just made me even madder, and I would sulk for two and a half hours on the bus on my way home.”

Dee Knuckles came calling in 1978 with a fight offer. In Japan of all places. “She said that I was too young to get a license in the United States, but I could in Japan,” explained VanBuskirk, who had turned 17 not long before. As if the prospect of debuting overseas wasn’t daunting enough for a first-time teenaged fighter, Britt was thrown a curveball by the Japanese officials once they laid eyes on her.

“When we got there, the promotional company had a problem with how tall I was,” the five-foot-ten Britt says. Although she weighed the same as her opponent, her height was an issue to the degree that they insisted the match could go ahead only as a boxer vs. kickboxer mixed match rather than a straight-up prizefight. Having trained so hard and traveled all that way, turning back was not an option.

“Dee said I had to do it, so I said ok. It was my first fight and Dee worked my corner in Tokyo,” continues VanBuskirk, who debuted at Korakuen Hall. “Probably the hardest thing that I had ever done at that time. I watched as a line of boxers went out, all bright eyed and confident, only to return defeated, swollen, and bloody. I thought to myself, ‘Britt, what have you gotten yourself into now?’ Then they called for me. My turn. As I went up the steps to the ring, my knees buckled. Then, when she put the mouthpiece in, I gagged. She scolded me.”

VanBuskirk’s very first opponent was Itsuki Masako, who Britt says was “their best fighter.” The two would become reacquainted inside the ring twice more during Britt’s tour of Japan later that year. “I won in the second round just like Howard, my trainer, said I would,” VanBuskirk recollects. “He always said it will be in the second round that you will land that big right hand of yours and the fight will be over. His predicting puzzled me. I was only 17, and I didn’t understand how he knew so much. I returned to LA with a new sense of purpose and belief in my trainer.” Britt’s stay back home would be a brief one.

“After about a month of bus riding, Dee called again and we went back to Japan for my second fight,” she says. As luck would have it, a full-length video sourced from an old VHS tape exists that shows Britt’s tussle versus kickboxer and wrestler Kaorou Jumbo in Van Buskirk’s new home away from home in Tokyo.

Blue gym shorts and a white V-neck t-shirt sufficed perfectly fine for boxing gear as far as Britt was concerned, whereas her Japanese adversary entered wearing a billowy yellow pantsuit with a cape to match which covered the top of her head like a hood. Beneath this fashionable garment was sensible ring attire, a red singlet and skirt.

“Total panic ran through my body, and I moved forward,” recounts VanBuskirk, who deflected a series of kicks and came forward behind her long jab to score with a nice left hook moments into the bout. Backing Jumbo against the ropes with two body blows, VanBuskirk found herself on the seat of her pants at the 18 second mark when she was shoved to the mat by a left foot to the midsection. The third woman in the ring (the referee was also female) initiated no count, permitting Britt to regain her footing and the fight to continue.  

Curiously, Jumbo threw a grand total of one earnest punch (a jab which did not connect), the remaining sum of the Japanese combatant’s offense accounted for by knees and kicks, using her gloved hands only to ward off Britt’s attacks or paw at her during tie-ups. At the minute and a half mark of round two, Van Buskirk put Jumbo down with a right hook that was preceded by a left to the body.

“My trainer’s voice came to me,” she reminisced. “I did what that voice said: Stay behind your jab, pump your jab. When you see an opening, throw a right hand.” Going in for the kill now that her prey was wounded, Britt sent her to the deck again twenty seconds later with a flurry that culminated in one of those right hands she just spoke of. With her eyes rolling around in her head like a parody of an old silent slapstick comedy, Jumbo beat the count and survived to fight another round.

She would not make it out of the third. With less than thirty seconds elapsed in the stanza, VanBuskirk dropped her once more with a pair of lefts which were set up by a body shot. Negligibly supported by shaky legs once standing upright, Jumbo stumbled back a few steps and spit out her mouthpiece. No measure was taken one way or the other, probably since the referee had turned to signal Britt forward from her neutral corner when this occurred, and action recommenced.   

After three kick attempts missed their mark, VanBuskirk lunged forward and landed a left to the ribs which initiated a clinch. With her left arm rendered temporarily immobile by the bearhug, Britt relied on her trusty right hand to bring about the beginning of the end by unleashing it to the head and body in rapid fashion. Her left hand now sufficiently free, VanBuskirk let it go as well, digging it to the liver. Tasting canvas for the fourth and final time, Jumbo was still writhing around in agony even as Britt favored the press photographers with an ear to ear smile while holding the large ornate trophy she was presented.   

“There was no cheering in the arena. You could hear a pin drop,” recalls VanBuskirk of the customary yet surely no less eerie silence that accompanied her victory. “I was elated that it was over first, then happy about the finish. That’s why fighters hug when a fight is finished, because it’s over and they are happy.”

Ebanie Bridges Silences Critics and Defends Bantamweight Title With TKO Victory Over Aussie Rival Shannon O'Connell

 

Say what you want about Ebanie Bridges, and many have–myself included, but you have to admit that the naughty Aussie can fight. She proved this by putting an early and violent end to the maiden defense of her IBF world bantamweight title versus her mandatory challenger and sworn enemy, Shannon O’Connell. 

“Not bad for a skanky stripper,” Bridges boasted after her eight-round demolition of O’Connell last night in Leeds. Anyone who has been paying attention to the acceleration of this blood feud over the last several months understands the reference point of Ebanie’s proclamation as one of many insults O’Connell slapped her with throughout their war of words. A bit of trash talk, incidentally, which Bridges embraced and co-opted by labeling her squad of seconds and supporters Team Skanky Stripper.

The defending champion remarked in the lead-up to Saturday’s hotly-anticipated title fight that her victory was “written in the stars.” Always the center of her own universe, yesterday evening the planets aligned above Bridges and she dictated the spinning of Earth’s axis to her own preferred pace and direction, resulting in her hand being raised after fewer than sixteen brutal minutes in which she gained a huge measure of revenge over O’Connell and no small degree of respect from her long list of critics. Again, I will be the first to admit that I count myself among them. 

Things got off to a shaky start for the defending champion, however, as O’Connell enjoyed early success in fending off the swarming attack of Bridges by creating just enough distance with jabs and body blows to retaliate with sharp right hands over Ebanie’s initially lazy jabs. 

With twenty seconds remaining in the first round, Shannon dug her right hand into Bridges’ midsection before immediately bringing it upstairs to crash against the champion’s jawline. Momentarily bereft of her equilibrium, Ebanie performed a backward stutter-step with a slight list to her starboard side but righted the ship just before running aground. In an effort to regain her sea legs and sense of whereabouts, she was forced to do the previously unthinkable and embrace O’Connell to ride the storm out. 

Determined to establish and maintain a frantic pace, Bridges continued to surge forward when action resumed in round two. Whether this strategy would work to her advantage or be her undoing only time would tell. Shannon, though she curiously abandoned her jab from this point forward, countered well and found ways in which to halt Ebanie’s momentum, albeit briefly, and took the early lead by putting the first two stanzas in her column. 

The turning of the tide came within the first twenty seconds of the third round. First knocking O’Connell off-balance with a stiff left jab, Bridges seized the opportunity by pouncing on her compromised adversary with a glancing left lead succeeded by a flush right hook that sent the challenger to the deck where she took an eight-count from one knee wearing a combined look of perplexity and utter exhaustion. 

It was at this point that Bridges assumed command of the bout which, for O’Connell, became an exercise in fighting for survival. Given her often traumatic backstory, this is something with which she is intimately familiar and has taught her countless invaluable lessons. Some skirmishes you win and others you lose but the objective, whether in boxing or in life itself, is to keep punching. Shannon did exactly that last night, despite the quite obvious fact that this just wasn’t her night. The relentless onslaught of right hands from Bridges saw to that, deforming the left side of O'Connell's face into a grotesque caricature.

Bridges’ stifling full-court press not only removed O’Connell’s jab from the equation, but also totally nullified Shannon’s customary employment of feints, pivots, and varying punching angles. The champion took a page from Tyson Fury’s book by leaning her bulkier frame on O’Connell during clinches or bending her over double while backed into a corner, adding significantly to the fatigue factor.

The bitter rivals slugged it out at center ring, swinging for the fences. O’Connell was looking to summon a game-changing counterpunch while Bridges uncorked a heavy volume of shots upstairs and down to set up what seemed to be an inevitable coup de grace, very much enjoying what she would later celebrate as bullying the bully.

Referee Howard Foster, who showed great restraint in giving O’Connell the benefit of the doubt for as long as he did, finally waved the fight off at the 1:45 mark of round eight. Bridges trapped Shannon against the ropes and battered her with a flurry of unanswered punches, putting an unpredictably disquieting end to months of heated negotiations and slanderous insults. 

When I mentioned earlier that Bridges won the respect of her naysayers, however begrudging it may be, such was not the case for O’Connell. Those hoping to witness a hug of the hatchet-burying kind, or a congratulatory handshake at the bare minimum, would be left wanting in this regard. As Howard Foster lifted the victorious Bridges’ arm at center ring, Shannon put her own exclamation point on their feud in the form of a raised middle finger. 

Just shy of turning 40 and now with three unsuccessful world title bids on her resume, Shannon O’Connell will have a nearly day-long flight back to Australia on which to begin the process of resting, recuperating, and pondering her future.

Her personal opinion of Ebanie Bridges notwithstanding–or mine or yours, for that matter–the Blonde Bomber earned her nickname the hard way last night in Leeds. Bridges has made it quite clear that this is her world and the rest of us are just living in it. That’s for everyone else to deal with, like it or not. Ebanie is obviously fine with it either way.

A Tale of Two Aussies: Shannon O'Connell and Ebanie Bridges Finally Ready to Smash It Up in Leeds

 

Styles make fights, as the saying goes. The contrast in question, of course, naturally refers to boxing styles and not lifestyles. That is not at all the case here. 

Authored by the principals involved, the narrative woven throughout the pre-fight chatter surrounding Saturday’s bantamweight title bout between IBF world champion Ebanie Bridges and her mandatory challenger Shannon O’Connell has focused almost exclusively on their clash of personalities. The battle lines have been unmistakably drawn, on either side of which stand the fighters themselves dug in alongside their distinct brands of admirers.    

Occupying one corner, you have Ebanie Bridges, the preferred choice of fight fans who are more likely than not just as familiar with OnlyFans. In fact, Bridges shamelessly advertised the pay-for-play website on a t-shirt as well as her bare midriff at this morning’s weigh-in. It is as easy as it is understandable to dismiss Bridges as an entitled airhead who was fast-tracked to a world championship more on the strength of her sweater size, social media following, and influential promoter than her proficiency with a left jab, right hook, or uppercut. 

A former bodybuilder and ring-card girl who also teaches high school math, plays piano, and is a talented sketch artist, there’s actually much more to Ebanie than meets the eye. The problem is, you’d hardly know it by scrolling through her bawdy Twitter posts or watching her voyeuristic weigh-ins. 

It’s obvious that she’s having a laugh, but at whose expense? Has she unwittingly become the butt of her own joke, if you pardon the pun? It is undeniable that she draws eyes to her participation in women’s boxing, but are lascivious eyes that leer and ogle the type you really feel comfortable attracting to the sport?  

Not in the opinion of Shannon O’Connell, very much in Bridges’ opposing corner. A mother of three, Shannon is a battle-tested veteran of the hurt business with eighteen years of experience dating back to her amateur days, and more knockouts as a pro (11) than Bridges has fights (9). Having survived a childhood that is more tragic than anything Charles Dickens ever dreamed up and almost inexplicably lived to tell the tale, O’Connell has had to struggle mightily for everything she has achieved in and out of the ring.

Shannon’s hardscrabble life experience informs the no-nonsense approach she takes toward boxing. She equates the sport that saved her life to a kind of self-flagellation that she ultimately finds is beneficial to her physical as well as emotional well-being. This existential trait, of course, can and has been used against her by Ebanie Bridges, who portrays O’Connell as being a sour, envious, and humorless spoilsport. Needless to say, it is a personal affront to Shannon that Bridges is far more concerned with brand-building than prizefighting.       

Their animosity notwithstanding, Saturday evening in Leeds will prove to be the best of times for one and the worst of times for the other.

This occasion marks O’Connell’s third world title shot but first ever visit to the UK, one that required a 21-hour flight from sunny Australia to frigid cold England. She spent the better part of two weeks training at Ricky Hatton’s gym in Manchester and acclimating to the changes in temperature and time zone.  

Bridges, a Leeds United fan and UK transplant, will be competing in her adopted hometown. This raises serious concerns as to how fairly O’Connell will be treated by the judges assuming the fight lasts the distance and goes to the scorecards. For Shannon, it also calls into question the Aussie vs. Aussie aspect of the pre-fight hype, given that Bridges has literally removed herself from the Land Down Under and switched allegiances so effortlessly. 

For all of their enmity, the pair only came face to face for the very first time at yesterday’s press conference. Confronted about her “skanky stripper” remark about Bridges, O’Connell not only refused to walk it back but doubled down by clarifying, “She’s not a skanky stripper, she’s a skanky wannabe stripper.” 

Bridges did little to disabuse Shannon’s notion at this morning’s weigh-in by outdoing herself yet again, stepping onto the scale after disrobing to reveal transparent undergarments beset with strategically placed floral designs. For anyone interested in more than what Ebanie did or did not have on, she weighed in at 117.75 while O’Connell came in at 117.35.  

“I’ve got morals,” sniped O’Connell in a fight-week interview when asked about her distaste for how Bridges conducts herself. “I’ve got a 15-year-old daughter, and if I was doing the things Ebanie is doing it would be basically telling my 15-year-old daughter, ‘Get your clothes off and you can basically get what you want in life.’ That’s not what I’m about.”

To Bridges it’s all “sticks and stones” type bitterness on the part of O’Connell which she personally finds “boring” as she’s heard it all before and, regardless, feeds off insults from haters. Her motivation, in part, stems from a desire to prove that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Shannon retorted by claiming that Bridges’ relentless flaunting of her body signifies quite the opposite and that “she is putting herself out there to be judged.” 

“I don’t have a fake bone in my body,” stated O’Connell at Thursday’s presser, “so everything I’ve said I meant.” Presumably she also stands behind calling Ebanie a “fat c**t” on a viral video in which she combatively doubted Bridges’ given weight. This verbal callback to a since-deleted Tweet in which Shannon taunted Ebanie’s ample proportions has sparked outrage in the form of accusations of bullying and fat shaming from some fans and media outlets. As to her use of the feminine slur, it shouldn’t be overlooked that Bridges used the same exact term in a Tweet of her own with regards to Shannon months ago.    

With the time to talk the vicious talk now in the rearview mirror, the moment is nearly at hand for Bridges and O’Connell to walk the walk, from their respective corners to the center of the ring at First Direct Arena where they will at long last swap leather in lieu of insults. 

Sporting the faded remnants of a black eye from sparring, which elicited a snide reaction from Ebanie, O’Connell stared daggers through a smirking Bridges after yesterday’s press conference, sneering “You’re fucked now, bitch.” 

Bridges burst out in laughter, whether of the nervous or genuine variety only she knows. The question is who will laugh last tomorrow in Leeds? 

Shannon Courtenay, a very interested party in the outcome of Bridges vs. O’Connell, will be back in action for the first time since losing her WBA world bantamweight title to Jamie Mitchell last November, facing 5-5 Gemma Ruegg. Also on the undercard, lightweight prospect Rhiannon Dixon looks to improve her pro record to a perfect 7-0 against 7-6-1 Kristine Shergold.