All is Unfair in Love and War
Every fighter, no matter the measure of his or her force
and fortitude, has their frailties. Greek mythology tells us that Thetis
baptized her infant son Achilles in the River Styx, hoping to make him immortal.
She may have succeeded if not for the fact that the ankle by which she held him
remained untouched by its tempestuous waters, leaving his heel vulnerable to
the poison arrow shot by Paris while Achilles, a Trojan War hero, knelt at the Temple of
Apollo to offer a sacrifice in honor of his betrothed, and his assassin’s
knowing sister, Polyxena.
Hobbled by a ruptured Achilles tendon, the combat-tested
and battle-ready Lucia Rijker, an undefeated veteran of 37 kickboxing contests
and 17 prizefights, was not only forced to withdraw from her
years-in-the-making million-dollar match against Christy Martin but ultimately
abandon the sport that she and her longtime antagonist had helped propel into
the public consciousness on behalf of women everywhere, whether or not that was
their original intention.
Martin made no bones about her feministic ambivalence and
that any benefits to the betterment of female prizefighting resulting directly
from her achievements were purely coincidental. “I’m not out to make a
statement about women in boxing, or even women in sports,” Christy admitted in
Richard Hoffer’s famous April 15, 1996 Sports Illustrated cover story.
“I’m not trying to put women in the forefront, and I don’t even think this
fascination has much to do with that. This is about Christy Martin.”
Rijker, meanwhile, offered this very distinct
counterpoint. “I’ve been fighting my whole life for the rights of women all
over the world. There is so much more,” she reflected in a 2008 Curve
magazine article, “and there’s also a time to start to give back and to share.
It’s a natural cycle, and when you follow the natural cycle then your life goes
well.”
Her professional pride and personal life having both
absorbed some bumps and bruises through the intervening years, there was more
to Rijker’s decision to walk away from boxing than just a compromised ankle.
Martin would compete irregularly for another seven years,
divulging a long-guarded truth and returning from a consequentially horrific
domestic attack in pursuit of an elusive milestone. For both Lucia and Christy—not
to mention their opponents, forerunners, and successors—simply being females
punching their way to respectability through the closed doors of boxing’s boys’
club was—and still is—an Achilles heel unto itself.
The Coalminer’s Daughter
Though her moniker is self-explanatory, Christy Martin’s
accidental journey to the prize ring deserves accounting for. A Little League
catcher then basketball player for Mullens High School and Concord College in
her native West Virginia, freshman Christy Salters accepted her teammates’
challenge to participate in a local Tough Woman contest. Not only did she enter
and outfight three other competitors for the $1,000 prize that night in 1987,
but delivered repeat performances the following two years before graduating
with a Bachelor of Science degree in education.
Salters’ mother Joyce, in a reversal of the role
typically reserved for the trepidatious parent, enthusiastically escorted
Christy (who admittedly “didn’t know a jab from a hook”) to Bristol, Tennessee
and into the gym of former light-heavyweight boxer turned trainer Jim Martin,
who was so aghast at the prospect of working with a woman that he boasted about
there being “no question I was going to have her ribs broke” as a preventive
measure.
Instead, Christy proved herself in the rough and tumble
gym wars sufficiently enough so that Martin became convinced by—and then
smitten with—his new protégé and soon-to-be bride. Of course, his not terribly
valiant first positive impression was that “maybe this woman can make me some
money.” Which she would. But at what a cost.
With the exception of a lone hiccup against Andrea
DeShong in her fifth paid outing (a majority decision loss which she avenged
five months later and again prior to the Tyson/Holyfield bite fight in 1997),
Christy Martin dazzled fight fans and Don King alike with her walk-forward
aggression, knockout power, folksy mountain twang, and powder pink boxing garb.
Within five years, Christy went from fighting before tiny
assemblies gathered at Tennessee smokers to an undercard highlighting former
WBC heavyweight champion Pinklon Thomas at the Daytona Beach Howard Johnsons to
knocking out Susie Melton in 40 seconds at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand on the same
night that Julio Cesar Chavez lost his first fight (and WBC super-lightweight title)
to Frankie ‘The Surgeon’ Randall and Felix Trinidad outpointed Hector Camacho in
defense of his IBF welterweight championship.
So anti-climactic was the violent repossession of the WBC
belt from short-term claimant Frank Bruno by a released and resurgent but
hardly reformed Mike Tyson on March 16, 1996 that Christy Martin and Deirdre
Gogarty transformed what was expected to be laughed off as a vaudevillian
novelty into a show-stealing, headline-making six-round war of attrition.
Not only did Gogarty, an 8-3-2 Irish featherweight,
astonish the attendees at the MGM Grand and Showtime PPV home audience (not to
mention Martin) by picking herself up off the floor in the second round and
exchanging firepower with her heavier and stronger opponent but by rocking
Christy with a straight right which, in Jim Martin's unsentimental terminology,
made her “bleed like a stuck pig.” It is famously referred to as the most
profitable bloody nose in boxing history.
The brawl earned both women widespread acclaim from many previously
skeptical boxing enthusiasts and the no-longer oblivious mainstream media, and
made a household name of the victorious Christy Martin by way of her subsequent
appearance on the cover of Sports Illustrated bearing the supplemental
tagline “The Lady is a Champ.” Following a contractual squabble, Don King would
also include Christy as an added attraction to Tyson’s first-round knockout of
WBA heavyweight champion Bruce Seldon, as well as Iron Mike’s TKO loss to
Holyfield and its aforementioned cannibalistic sequel.
The Dutch Destroyer
Raised in working-class Amsterdam, Lucia Rijker was the
last of four children born, in 1967, to her blonde Dutch mother and black
immigrant father who earned his living bottling beer in a Heineken
factory.
It seems there was virtually nothing that the naturally
gifted Rijker couldn’t do athletically. From practicing Judo at the tender age
of six, Lucia went on to play tennis as well as earn a spot on the Dutch
National Softball Team. She took up fencing at thirteen and won the Netherlands
Junior Championship before following her brother into kickboxing, a craft she
perfected at the famed Rotterdam gym of Johan Vos.
One draw would be the lone blemish on an otherwise
flawless kickboxing career, four world title wins included amongst Lucia’s 36
victories. Indeed, the only loss Rijker ever suffered inside a squared circle, and
a vicious one at that, occurred by way of second-round knockout to a male 13-1
New Zealand kickboxing champion named Somchai Jaidee in what was advertised as
a ‘He vs. She’ Muay Thai exhibition at Amsterdam’s Sporthallen Zuid in 1994.
After relocating to Los Angeles and coming under the
tutelage of trainer Freddie Roach at his Wild Card Gym (she would also work early
on with Joe Goossen at the renowned Ten Goose Boxing Gym), Rijker joined the
professional prizefighting ranks within a week of Christy Martin’s
groundbreaking 1996 win over Deirdre Gogarty with a ninety-second destruction
of 3-3 Melinda Robinson at the storied Olympic Auditorium.
Kelly Jacobs, Lucia’s second victim, survived for only
thirteen additional seconds on a stacked card at Las Vegas’ Lawlor Events
Center which also saw James Toney successfully defend his WBU light-heavyweight
title against Montell Griffin and Micky Ward tough out a split decision over
Manny Castillo, who filled in for the injured Julio Cesar Chavez.
Two homecoming fights in Holland later, the 4-0 Rijker
returned stateside in search of a promotional deal and found one only when,
being turned down by Don King who already had his hands full dealing with
Christy Martin, she barged through the door of an initially dismissive Bob Arum
after finding that a polite knock would simply not suffice.
Lucia’s first televised Top Rank fight in Corpus Christi,
Texas was also her first true test, coming against future world champion
Chevelle Hallback who had only one previous bout to her credit but, as of her
last outing in 2021, possesses a 33-8-2 record with a resume that reads like a
who’s who of female boxing. It took Rijker until the fifth and penultimate
round to tire out, break down, and nearly pummel through the ropes her intense
but inexperienced foe.
Lucia made a statement by knocking out Christy Martin’s
only conqueror to that point, Andrea DeShong, in the third round on the
undercard of the Oscar De La Hoya/Hector Camacho ‘Opposites Attack’ main event
on September 13, 1997. Her last Top Rank appearance would come just over one
year later at Foxwoods Resort when she claimed the vacant WIBO super-lightweight
title with a second-round TKO of Marcela Eliana Acuna. A 50-8-2 six-time world
champion who fought as recently as last November, Acuna had made her debut only
nine months before the Rijker bout, losing on points over ten rounds to Christy
Martin.
Bob Arum, evidently under the impression that he was not
getting a satisfactory return on his investment, severed his eighteen
month-long association with Lucia so that he could pour his vast resources into
a far more profitable female commodity in the fist-fighting sex kitten, Mia St.
John.
Unladylike Conduct
“Lucia doesn’t fight like a girl. She doesn’t come out and
just go nuts. When the bell rings, she comes out and takes control,” remarked
Emanuel Steward, who remembers first watching Rijker on a television set in the
dressing room where he was wrapping Lennox Lewis’ hands for a heavyweight title
fight.
“Turn around and look at that girl there,” Lewis
instructed Emanuel. “She is so smooth. Whoa! I’ve never seen anybody fight that
good!” Steward recalled that when the instant replay of Rijker’s knockout was
shown, “the whole dressing room stopped to watch her.”
Steward said at the time, “Naturally, Christy Martin’s
never going to fight her. If she do, it’ll be the end of Christy Martin.” He
went on to opine, “The problem is there’s nobody around who can give her the
challenge to really bring out her talent. It’s just unfortunate that she’s not
able to fight as a man, because she would be the Sugar Ray Leonard of boxing
right now in that weight division.”
Seeing as though Christy Martin had already been clocked
on Rijker’s radar, HBO executives were keen on laying the groundwork for what
was already being viewed as their inevitable super-fight as early as March 1997
with a hyped-up lead-in to Lucia’s donnybrook with Chevelle Hallback. On the Real
Sports preview show, Martin not only called Rijker’s gender into question
but implied that, if Lucia were in fact all woman, her musculature may have
been arrived at through chemical enhancement. This set the nasty tone which
would become the accompanying soundtrack to their rivalry.
Although the entire card would eventually get scrapped
when title contender Henry Akinwande tested positive for Hepatitis-B shortly
before his scheduled fight against heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield at
Madison Square Garden in June 1998, Lucia Rijker tagged along to the press
conference. Unbeknownst to Lucia, there was an ulterior motive behind her
invitation.
Joining headliners Holyfield and Akinwande up on the dais
at the House of Blues were undercard fighters Roberto Duran, William Joppy, and
Christy Martin. Never before had Martin and Rijker been in the same place at
the same time. Showtime executive Jay Larkin ran down to the floor with mic in
hand, making a bee-line for Rijker.
“Hi, my name is Lucia Rijker,” she began, completely
caught off guard and more than a little flustered. “I’d like to say to Evander
that you’re the greatest, and the way you carry yourself, you’re really a role
model for boxing, and I really appreciate that.”
Holyfield responded with a hearty “Thank you!” before
Lucia shifted her focus. “And I have a question for Christy Martin,” she continued,
fully wrapped up in the moment now. “I am Lucia Rijker. This is the first time
we met, right here, so I want to take this opportunity to ask you to stand up
and be a woman, and be a tough woman as you really are, because I know you are,
and I want an answer from you. I’ve talked to your promoter. He’s willing to
put up the fight, but he’s told me that you don’t want to, so now I’m here to
talk to you. So now I’m asking you.”
Martin’s reaction to being called out face to face in so
public a forum was to go completely ballistic. “I’m not afraid to stand up and
be a woman, because I am a woman, and we don’t have to doubt that in any way,
shape, or form,” she exploded, shaking her finger at Rijker. “And if my
promoter said I didn’t want to fight, then my promoter is giving out
misinformation.”
Christy was on a roll and there was no stopping her
tirade. “I think I’m the best woman fighter in the world, and I will prove that
when given the opportunity,” she boasted. “But, as you maybe don’t know, this is
a business, and with business there are a lot of other people involved besides
the two of us. So if Don King will give up my promotional rights, or sell my
promotional rights, whatever it takes for the fight to be made, I will be very
happy for the fight to be made. But you have six months, because I am going to
be a mother after that.”
Lucia was ready to take Martin at her word on the spot.
“I accept the offer,” she said. “We will have the fight within six months.” At
the conclusion of the event, Rijker approached Christy with one hand extended
in a good will gesture while using the other to tap Martin on the shoulder.
“Don’t touch me!” Christy shouted, whirling around.
“Touch me one more time and we’re going to fight right now!” Unable to deny
herself the sheer pleasure of seeing what sort of response she would get, Lucia
once again tapped Martin’s shoulder. Before fists began to fly, Christy’s
entourage sprang into action, physically extricating Martin from the volatile
situation.
“God, I wanted to fight her so bad,” Rijker stated in
exasperation. Instead, Christy would continue to conduct their feud strictly in
the press. Besides referring to Rijker as a “steroid dyke,” Martin would
suggest that someone “check her pants” to ensure that Lucia was anatomically
correct. As long as it would get the match made, Rijker repeatedly agreed to
relent to Martin’s absurd demand that she undergo DNA testing before she would
sign her name opposite Lucia’s on a contract.
It made no difference. The WIBF offered an even split of
a $1.5 million purse. Rijker had her pen clicked open, eagerly poised to sign
on. Christy felt the offer was beneath her. Lucia opened the door to a
winner-take-all option. Martin slammed it in her face. And on it went like
this. Earth dutifully turned on its axis while Rijker and Martin pointlessly
spun around one another in oppositional gravitation.
While Christy soldiered on, collecting her second loss in
the process (to Sumya Anani…more on that later), Lucia Rijker vanished from the
boxing scene following her third-round TKO of Diana Dutra in August 1999,
despite being contractually obligated to face Denise Moraetes in December. Her
sudden disappearance fueled much speculative gossip, the more outlandish claims
being that Rijker had contracted Hepatitis or HIV.
It should go without saying that these rumors diverged
wildly from the multi-faceted reality of the situation. In addition to needing
time for her eardrum to mend (which had been burst by Dutra during their fight),
Lucia returned to Amsterdam to be at the bedside of her father who was
suffering from terminal stomach cancer. This, coupled with the futility of
chasing Christy Martin and the mortification of being discarded by Top Rank’s
ringmaster and carnival barker Bob Arum, who was busy peddling Mia St. John and
Eric ‘Butterbean’ Esch as sideshow attractions, caused Rijker to develop severe
ulcers which required medical treatment.
When she was well enough to do so, Lucia made the rounds
of the film festival circuit with director Katya Bankowsky to help promote her
fantastic documentary Shadow Boxers which wove the story of the first
female New York Golden Gloves competitors in 1995 through the conjoined
narrative of Rijker’s ascendance. It was during her travels that Lucia met
Hilary Swank, who talked to Rijker about her upcoming involvement in Clint
Eastwood’s latest project, an adaptation of a novella from a book called Rope
Burns written by boxing trainer Jerry Boyd whose pen name was FX Toole.
Martin was three days away from having to transact
business with one tough customer in 17-3-1 Belinda Laracuente (a fight,
incidentally, everyone but Martin believes she really lost) on the same lineup
as Felix Trinidad’s challenge for David Reid’s WBA super-welterweight title
when Lucia resurfaced. Reid was in the midst of conducting a public workout
while Martin was being interviewed by a Los Angeles news crew. Enter Lucia
Rijker. How the situation escalated is a case of she said/she said.
Christy maintained that Rijker sidled up and whispered
something into her ear, which she was certainly close enough to have done,
though Lucia denied it. What undoubtedly did transpire was that Martin shoved
Rijker who hit Christy with a left cross, the only punch ever to be thrown
between the two, it would turn out. Lucia found herself pinned to the ground by
a male member of Martin’s entourage who held a tight grip around Rijker’s
throat while Christy unloosed a profanity-laced tirade which would have made
Mike Tyson proud.
Before being ejected, Lucia expressed how sorry she was
to Don King who told her, “No you’re not. You wanted this.” She had to admit he
was right. However, Rijker was more contrite in hindsight when speaking to
novelist and journalist Katherine Dunn. “I regret lowering myself to her level
because it’s not my style. The fighter in me got challenged.”
Martin, meanwhile, bemoaned being sucker-punched by
someone she alleged had been running from her for years and feels the need to
fight a man yet pulls out of fights with other females due to what Christy
scoffed was “some Buddhist bullshit.”
Fists of Fury, Peace of Mind
It would be understandable to jump to the conclusion that
boxing and Buddhism occupy mutually exclusive domains and that, to lift a line from
Rudyard Kipling, “never the twain shall meet.” But not so fast. There is,
believe it or not, a fairly wide expanse of philosophical middle ground
overlapping the two realms.
Let’s begin with the first of the Buddha’s Four Noble
Truths which is the acknowledgement that “life is suffering,” albeit not in the
dismal, self-defeating sense in which it might be misinterpreted at first
glance. Rather, it is intended as an affirmative recognition of impermanence,
the constant state of change or flux.
The first Truth of the Noble Ones is something of a
signpost pointing the way to the myriad discoveries contained within the
remaining three truths—the Origin of Suffering, the Cessation of Suffering, and
the Way Leading to the Cessation of Suffering. Wisdom, Morality, and
Concentration are the three elements that comprise the steps to be taken along
the eight-fold path leading away from the sources of our suffering while
endeavoring toward consciousness, happiness, compassion, and enlightenment.
The Buddhist and the boxer both strive to achieve and
maintain clarity of mind and command of body despite disruptive outside
influences as well as one’s own inner fears or perceived defects. “To me,
boxing’s about focus, self-control and discipline,” Lucia Rijker has said. “You
can sabotage yourself or you can motivate yourself.”
Rijker has long incorporated into her daily routine the
ritual chanting of “Nam-myoho-renge-kyo” which is specific to the Soka Gakkai
school of Buddhism, based on the teachings of the 13th century Japanese monk
Nichiren. It translates literally from Sanskrit as “to devote oneself to the
mystic law of the lotus sutra” and celebrates the blossoming of the lotus that
simultaneously flowers and gives fruit from the muddy water in which it grows,
symbolizing the self-empowering concept that the Buddha exists in each of us,
waiting to be awakened. The cause and effect of dignity. Beauty spawned from
filth. Sure sounds like boxing to me.
“I used to want to kill my opponent. I could care less, I
just wanted to beat you and knock you out,” Rijker contemplated in 2014. “And,
when I became a Buddhist, I thought that I need you to bring out my potential.
So, with all the respect that stepped between the ropes, I wanted to show my
fullest potential and that’s why I love the sport so much.”
Lucia joined the broadcast team of Jim Lampley, Larry
Merchant, and George Foreman to offer her comments on the first four rounds of
Christy Martin’s 2001 Madison Square Garden tussle with Kathy Collins. She
credited Collins for taking the fight (which would be Kathy’s last) and paid
due respect to Martin’s punching power and expert pacing.
Asked by Lampley, Rijker advocated for three-minute
rounds in women’s boxing and pointed out to a sheepish but appreciative Big
George that, while sustaining a strike to the chest area definitely knocked you
off-balance, a blow directly to the breast did not affect her one way or the
other. Lucia also gave her version of events relevant to her melee with Martin,
conceding that “I probably shouldn’t have been there.”
On February 16, 2002-after a nearly two and a half year
layoff-Rijker returned to the prize ring with a fourth-round TKO of Carla
Witherspoon, but it would be an additional sixteen months before she would once
again step inside the ropes and outpoint Jane Couch, who made history in 1998
as the first woman to be granted a license by the British Boxing Board of
Control. Lucia did find time in between those two bouts to attend Christy
Martin and Mia St. John’s ‘Battle of the Cover Girls’ and extend yet another
open challenge to the victorious Martin, one which would also go unanswered as
Christy opted instead to get destroyed by the bigger, stronger Laila Ali in an August 2003 catch-weight fight.
Rijker regretted that women’s boxing had become a hot
topic for all the wrong reasons, subject to ridicule due to what she called
“Tits and Ass and those daughters of old legends.” These were, of course, thinly-veiled
references to Mia St. John, Laila Ali, and Jacqui Frazier-Lyde. The female offspring
of both Muhammad and Smokin’ Joe followed in the footsteps of Archie Moore’s
little girl J’ Marie, who debuted in 1997 and fought only once more in 2000 (both
wins), and paved the way for Irichele Duran, Freeda Foreman, and Maria
Johansson as well.
Creatively billed as Ali/Frazier IV, a sort of sequel to
the ‘Thrilla in Manila,’ Jacqui and Laila met at the Turning Stone Resort and
Casino in Verona, New York, which is one exit east off the NYS Thruway from
Canastota where the 2001 International Boxing Hall of Fame inductions were
being held that weekend. Marvis Frazier walked his sister into the ring and
worked her corner while papa Joe watched from ringside. Muhammad Ali, however,
was halfway across the country putting in a personal appearance at a NASCAR
race in Michigan and, therefore, did not get to personally witness his baby
girl continue the family’s win streak against the Fraziers.
Million Dollar Baby
Her chance encounter with Hilary Swank turned out to be a
fortuitous one and Lucia Rijker, having previously put in a cameo appearance in
the 2002 remake of Rollerball, would not only play the part of Billie
‘The Blue Bear’ Osterman, the brutish opponent for Maggie Fitzgerald’s fateful
contest in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, but was tasked with choreographing
all of the movie’s fight scenes.
The huge box office success and nearly unanimous critical
acclaim of the film—not to mention its four major Academy Award wins for Best
Picture, Director, Actress, and Supporting Actor—helped bring women’s boxing into public conversation, regardless of how uneasy some felt about the controversial
and pivotal plot-point of assisted suicide.
All of this at long last brought about the formal
agreement between the various interested parties to the better-late-than-never
female mega-bout between Rijker and Martin. Despite the fact that the ‘Million
Dollar Lady’ tagline is attributed to Bob Arum, the sovereign of Top Rank
instead credited Emanuel Steward who had been training Lucia Rijker of late.
However the brainstorming of the promotional aspect played out, it was Arum who
bankrolled the supplemental $750,000 which would be awarded to the winner in
addition to the guaranteed $250,000 for both Martin and Rijker, hence the
million dollar prize.
The public relations train left the station, hurtling
full-steam ahead toward its final destination of Las Vegas, Nevada and its
12,000-seat Mandalay Bay Events Center which was booked for July 30, 2005. Time
not spent behind podiums at press conferences or on various couches during late
night talk shows was dedicated to the gym. Which is where a great deal of
pugilistic dreams begin but, as Lucia Rijker would learn the literally painful
truth of, some end.
During a sparring session ten days out from fight night,
Lucia stepped into an exposed seam in the canvas, rolled her ankle, heard an
audible pop, and collapsed in agony. An MRI confirmed everyone’s worst
suspicion, a torn Achilles tendon putting the fight with Martin on indefinite
delay.
In the wake of the letdown, many pondered the wisdom of
rescheduling a too-little, too-late event for which advance ticket sales and
pay-per-view pre-orders were undeniably lackluster. It was reported in the July
21 edition of the Los Angeles Times that a mere 2,000 seats had been
sold with walk-up ticket sales hoped to boost that figure to around 6,000 which
would only reach half-capacity.
Emanuel Steward hypothesized that Rijker could be ready
to go again by December, but this wound up being wishful thinking as her cast
had, by then, only recently been removed, further delaying Rijker’s recovery
and rehabilitation.
Unable to corner either Martin or Laila Ali and troubled
by the death of her mother, Lucia would never fight again. Her pro boxing record
was frozen in the record books at a perfect 17-0 with 14 knockouts. Meanwhile, Christy
Martin traveled to New Mexico where ‘The Coalminer’s Daughter’ would tangle
with ‘The Preacher’s Daughter,’ 10-1-2 Holly Holm, an intriguing face-off
between the ‘Divas of the Desert’ as it was billed by Fresquez Productions.
There was no debate about Holm’s supremacy over Martin in a unanimous decision
win, and it became obvious that a new era was dawning in women’s boxing.
“The fight with Lucia Rijker not happening took a big
part of my desire and motivation away,” Christy confessed. “I trained so hard
for it and was so prepared mentally and physically. It kind of broke me.”
Paying Full Fare on the Money Train
Rijker put forth the opinion that a historic throwdown
with Christy Martin would have been the equivalent to Ali vs. Frazier. Needless
to say, she wasn’t talking about Laila and Jacqui. Plausible as it is that this
fight could have and should have launched women’s boxing into a higher
stratosphere, it is just as likely that the rivalry between Christy and Lucia, which
unfortunately turned out to be cat and mouse rather than seek and destroy, was
detrimental to the sport in the sense that other worthy adversaries were left
wanting for their shot at high-profile validity and a lucrative payday.
‘The Island Girl’ Sumya Anani, for one, made well-known
her feelings regarding her career being a collateral-damage sort of casualty of
the million dollar ladies’ war of words. “I beat Christy Martin six years ago
and Rijker is still making this big stink about wanting to fight Martin and I
don’t understand that,” Sumya told Doghouse Boxing in 2004. “I understand from
the marketing and money aspects, but to me the sport is about trying to be the
best and fighting the best.”
An eventual four-time world champion in three weight
classes, Anani, 11-0 at the time, had pounded out a majority decision over Martin
in a December 1998 slugfest, dealing Christy her second loss in 40 fights.
Rather than being featured on a Don King-promoted Tyson or Trinidad
pay-per-view event at the MGM Grand as originally intended, Anani’s victory over
Martin was instead televised on a local basic cable channel from the Fort
Lauderdale Memorial Auditorium after Christy had balked on their first
contract.
Lucia Rijker remarked in a 2006 interview with Bernie
McCoy of the Femm Fan website that Anani “reminds me of Marciano...the way she
throws punches from all angles and keeps coming forward.” For these reasons and
more, Anani feels as though she was summarily and purposefully left on the
outside looking in.
“I know she’s ducking me,” she stated defiantly of
Rijker, adding that “she doesn’t have a legitimate belt in any division” and
“chooses not to respond to a public challenge.” As to her repeatedly futile
attempts to organize a rematch against Martin, Sumya said, “I beat her up and I
beat her in her prime, and I think that is hard for her to accept that loss.
Some people are not sportsmen when it comes to losing.”
While laughing that, “I appropriately changed her
nickname from The Coalminer’s Daughter to The Gold Digger’s Daughter,” Anani
had to resign herself to the grim reality that “everybody is going after these
money trains.”
Turning Lemons Into Pink Lemonade
It should come as no surprise that both Lucia Rijker and
Christy Martin were honored among the International Women’s Boxing Hall of
Fame’s inaugural Class of 2014 alongside Barbara Buttrick, Bonnie Canino, JoAnn
Hagen, Christy Halbert, and Regina Halmich. Christy, a familiar and welcome
face in Canastota at the International Boxing Hall of Fame’s annual induction
weekend festivities who is always more than happy to mingle with her fans and
never known to refuse an autograph or photo request, came terrifyingly close to
being enshrined posthumously.
On the evening of November 23, 2010, Martin informed her
husband Jim that she wanted out of their marriage so that she could pursue a full-fledged
relationship with her longtime lover, Sherry Jo Lusk. This announcement
prompted a savage beating by the man who Christy later confessed she loved but
was never in love with. Not only was Jim fully aware of Christy’s bisexuality, he
had threatened to go public with the revelation but for the fact that any
detrimental effects to her livelihood would have kept the cash from flowing
into his own pockets as a result. He had made repeated threats to Christy from
the very outset that he would kill her if she ever left him.
After stabbing Christy numerous times, nearly slashing
her leg to the bone with the 9-inch blade during her escape attempt, he then
shot his wife in the back with her own 9mm pistol—which, like her trunks and
robes and hand wraps, was colored pink—and proceeded to smash her head into a
chest of drawers. Left for dead, the self-preservation instincts of a true
warrior kicked in and Christy crawled out of the house, fearful that Jim would
follow to finish her off. Before that could happen, she was conveyed to a local
hospital by a good Samaritan and lived to see another day, which she
acknowledged in her Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame induction speech by thanking
Sherry for being her reason to keep fighting.
With Jim serving a 25-year sentence for attempted murder
but preferring to keep the married name by which she was so well known, Martin quickly
embarked upon two comebacks in search of her 50th career victory. She was
denied each time, due in large part to a broken hand and bad stoppage against Dakota
Stone and a stroke suffered prior to taking an ill-advised rematch with Mia St.
John.
Much more importantly, she is a survivor who is still
here to tell her tale. Now happily married to Lisa Holewyne, a fellow former
prizefighter whom Martin had fought and defeated in 2001, Christy lives in
North Carolina where she runs her own promotional company. Her turbulent life story
was the subject of the 2021 Netflix documentary Untold: Deal With the Devil,
and she has co-written her autobiography with longtime Boston Globe and Boston
Herald journalist Ron Borges. Titled Fighting For Survival, the book
is scheduled for release on June 8.
Bitten by the acting bug, Lucia Rijker enjoyed a
recurring role as an inmate on The L Word and earned some serious nerd
cred by playing a bit part as a Romulan communications officer in J.J. Abrams’
2009 Star Trek reboot. Lucia has dedicated herself to several fulfilling
philanthropic endeavors, as a globetrotting lecturer and inspirational life
coach, specializing in empowerment training for both body and mind, women and
men. Australian super-featherweight Diana Prazak benefitted directly from
Rijker’s selfless guidance, having won WIBA and WBC world titles with Lucia
working her corner.
The belligerent animosity that festered between Rijker
and Martin has, in Rijker’s case anyway, eroded over time, the hatchet buried
and poison arrows kept in their quiver. This can be evidenced in the remarks
made by Lucia during her entrance into the Women’s Hall of Fame in Fort
Lauderdale.
“Thank you Christy Martin. You were my drive. I needed a
focus point. I wanted to fight you, I wanted to beat you,” said Rijker. “God
prevented me, he took out my Achilles tendon right before the big fight that
could have helped put women’s boxing on the map. I’m sorry about what happened
to you, between you and your husband. May God bless his soul and God bless
you.”
Empathy and tolerance and forgiveness rather than sticks
and stones and broken bones. A healing touch administered by calloused hands.
The lotus blooms and suffering begets rebirth. Only, not as far as Martin is
concerned.
Christy was giving a ringside lecture on a rainy Saturday
morning of the 2016 International Boxing Hall of Fame induction weekend. I
requested the microphone during the Q+A session that followed to inquire as to
her disappointment that the fight with Lucia Rijker never took place and
whether the disdain between the two was genuine or mostly ballyhoo. I have to
admit, I was a little taken aback by the forthrightness of Christy’s candid
response.
“Oh no, I hate her,” Martin answered unequivocally. “I
hated her then, and I’ll always hate her.” She proceeded to call Rijker a
“fraud” and double down on the oft-repeated allegation that Lucia had faked her
injury to get out of the fight.
This deep-seeded animosity could make things especially
interesting at this summer’s already momentous IBHOF induction weekend,
with
the Covid pandemic having postponed the last two ceremonies. As esteemed
members of the Class of 2020, Martin and Rijker shared with pioneer Barbara
Buttrick the honor of being the first female boxers chosen to be enshrined in
Canastota’s hallowed halls. Both Lucia and Christy will presumably be present
to receive their gold rings and give their speeches that Sunday afternoon.
Whether they will congratulate, or even acknowledge one
another, remains to be seen for the next three months. While a literal embrace
is highly improbable, I still like to think that it is somewhere within the
realm of possibility that Christy Martin can find it inside herself to come to
a place of acceptance for Lucia Rijker.
Not merely as mutual hall of famers two times over, but
as fellow human beings who can surely appreciate the fact that life is far too
short and much too precious to continue to bear the unnecessary burden of
carrying a grudge.
Sources:
Brendan Bernhard. Looking For a Fight (LA
Weekly, September 18-24, 1998)
Curve Staff. Fighting Words: Lucia Rijker
(Curve Magazine, February 9, 2008)
Tris Dixon. Boxing Life Stories #29 Christy
Martin (March 31, 2021)
Katherine Dunn. Lucia Rijker—War With Christy
Martin –War Rumors and More Rumors (Cyber Boxing Zone, March 3, 2000)
Richard Hoffer. The Lady Is a Champ (Sports
Illustrated, April 15, 1996)
Paul Zanon. Safe Place: Christy Martin Looks
Back on Her Tumultuous Career, Life (Hannibal Boxing Media, August 4, 2019)
Shadow Boxers (Image Entertainment
documentary directed by Katya Bankowsky, 1999)
Untold: Deal With the Devil (Netflix
documentary directed by Laura Brownson, 2021)
WBAN: Sumya Anani, Christy Martin, and Lucia
Rijker Profiles
