Raven Chapman's First-Round KO Was the Type of Mismatch Boxing Needs to See Nevermore

 

Walking her ill-fated adversary back into a corner of the ring at legendary York Hall last Friday, Raven Chapman went about tapping, tapping, not so gently rapping at the head and midsection of Gabriella Mezei.

With her gloves pressed tight against her ears and elbows tucked together protecting her abdomen, Mezei absorbed a pair of right hands to the body and almost reflexively, with little more than a flirt and flutter, flicked out a lazy left of her own in a futile attempt to ward off the threat of this late visitor entreating entrance at the chamber door. Raven flew over the top of it with a right hook which hit Mezei high up on the head and sent the Romanian to the canvas where, deep into that darkness peering, she genuflected before Chapman on one knee.   

From her contrite, melancholy pose Mezei pondered, weak and weary, the ominous prospect of getting back up. However, referee Kieran McCann followed fast with his count to ten which reached its inevitable conclusion. It took only 58 seconds for Raven to quoth, “Nevermore.”    

Edgar Allan Poe references aside, Chapman celebrated the knockout, her third pro win and second stoppage, at York Hall and on social media. You can hardly blame her for merely going about her business as she navigates her way around the professional fight game. But the truth of the matter is that Gabriella Mezei was imported from Romania to England, her ninth consecutive visit to the UK, for the sole purpose of acting as little more than a live body for Raven to use as a punching bag for her debut in front of the Bethnal Green boxing fans. 

Of her eight prior trips to England, Mezei had been victorious on just two of those occasions. The most recent of these had been just shy of four weeks before her showdown with Chapman, a four-round points loss to novice Charlotte Powell in Liverpool. An even more telling statistic is that Mezei almost inconceivably tallied up 45 previous prizefights over seven years, winning only eleven. She fought ten times in her rookie year of 2015 alone, and would go on to get knocked out by the likes of Dina Thorslund, Maiva Hamadouche, and Alycia Baumgardner on her circuitous path to York Hall Friday night.       

With names and numbers like that on her resume, it’s pretty clear why promoter Frank Warren and matchmaker Steve Furness would single Mezei out as an attractive stepping stone for their featherweight prospect nicknamed ‘The Omen.’ Similarly, Chapman’s previous opponent, Karina Szmalenberg, went into their fight last November with a career record of 14-44-4. The pattern is impossible to ignore. And it provides an up and comer like Raven no teachable moments or room for growth necessary at this early stage to nurture her career. Worse still, it could have resulted in a serious injury or fatality. Thankfully, that didn't happen.       

Thursday’s weigh-in was a more sorry spectacle than the fight itself. Attempting to conceal a somewhat significant weight discrepancy, Mezei stepped on the scale wearing sneakers, jeans, and a sweater. This attire immediately aroused suspicion with the BBBofC official, who notified Gabriella and her handler that she would have to remove the excess clothing. Getting back only blank stares by way of response, he emphasized his request with gesticulations which he hoped would get his point across. They didn’t.

Mezei shook her head defiantly and began to stalk off until the official had words with her trainer who reluctantly beckoned her back onto the scale. Kicking off her trainers and taking off the sweatshirt, Mezei couldn’t have appeared more perturbed by this turn of events. She ultimately weighed in at 122.5 as opposed to Chapman, who tipped the scales at 127. Four and a half pounds may not sound like a hell of a lot, but comes close to separating the two by an entire weight class. A mismatch like this should never have been given the green light, but was anyway.

Looking like she would rather have been anywhere else in the world at that particular moment, not to mention cognizant of the fate that awaited her the following day, Mezei was nevertheless obligated to assume her place alongside Raven to pose for the stare down photo-op, halfheartedly lifting her balled-up fist. Her emotionless expression practically pleaded, just please give me my paycheck and let me go home. How she, Karina Szmalenberg, and others of their unfortunate ilk continue to get licensed and force fed to hungry young fighters is simply unfathomable.    

Let’s play devil’s advocate and say the shoe was on the other foot. If it was Mezei who weighed in nearly five pounds more than Chapman, do you really think Frank Warren would have allowed the fight to happen? Not bloody likely. And yet, boxing keeps perpetuating its sad tradition of besmirching itself at the hands of knowingly and recklessly irresponsible sanctioning bodies, athletic commissions, promoters, matchmakers, and managers.   

Did we collectively learn nothing from the tragic circumstances in Montreal last August which claimed the life of eighteen-year-old Jeanette Zacarias Zapata? The continuation of gross, senseless incompetence makes a mockery of her avoidable death and further tarnishes the already questionable reputation that boxing is most likely destined to spend eternity trying to crawl from under, not unlike the gloomy, lamplit shadow cast by Poe’s raven onto the chamber floor.

Chantelle Cameron Cruises Past Victoria Bustos, Ellie Scotney Outworks Maria Roman in London

 

With Chantelle Cameron and Kali Reis both emerging victorious in their respective ‘Road to Undisputed’ bouts within three weeks of one another last autumn, it was presumed that the two would next square off in a winner-take-all finale. Here we are with summer almost upon us and no matchup between Reis and Cameron in sight.

It seems that they have encountered some unspecified bumps along the ‘Road to Undisputed,’ though there have been indistinct murmurings having to do with Kali Reis’ health. Hopefully this is nothing serious, and Kali’s well-being of course takes top priority, but Cameron was nevertheless itching to get back into the ring.

There was also her affiliation with the corrupt and now defunct MTK Global to consider. Long tied to the Irish organized crime syndicate run by its co-founder Daniel Kinahan, MTK was forced to cease operation last month. Cameron admits to being driven to her wit’s end by it all to the point that she briefly considered leaving boxing behind.  

Rather than sit idly by, spinning her wheels in neutral while waiting for the situations with Reis and MTK to sort themselves out, Chantelle opted to hit the accelerator and motor full speed ahead toward London’s O2 Arena Saturday evening where she would put her WBC and IBF super-lightweight straps up for grabs against former IBF 135-pound titleholder Victoria Noelia Bustos.

The 23-6 Argentinian challenger rode a four-fight win streak into the weekend, her last defeat suffered at the hands of then-undisputed welterweight champion Cecilia Braekhus back in November 2019. An eleven year veteran of the prize ring, Bustos was just six bouts into her pro career (all wins) when she received her first world title shot. She put up a valiant effort against the undefeated defending WBC lightweight champion Erica Anabella Farias, but came up short on the scorecards.

Just ten months later, Bustos claimed the vacant IBF world lightweight title by narrowly outpointing Ana Laura Esteche. She would defend her championship successfully on five occasions before relinquishing it to Katie Taylor in their unification fight at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center in 2018. In the meantime, she was once again bested by Erica Farias, who had by then moved up to the 140-pound division and held the WBC championship.

That very same title now being in Chantelle Cameron’s possession, the heavy-hitting champion from Northampton saw fit to give Bustos her second crack at the green and gold belt, in addition to its IBF counterpart, on Saturday night. Bustos, who has neither been stopped nor notched any knockouts in 29 prior fights, competed as recently as March 19 when she eked out a six-round majority decision over 2-4 Erica Juana Gabriela Alvarez. Regardless, Chantelle, respectful of the Argentine’s impressive resume, vowed not to take her challenge lightly as a mere stay-busy opportunity.

Indeed, Bustos proved to be crafty and mostly elusive throughout the first four rounds as Cameron walked her down behind her left jab but had limited success in landing anything meaningful behind it thanks to her challenger moving her head off the line and frequently lowering herself into awkward crouches. Not until the midway point of the fight did Cameron begin to vary her punch selection to great effect, tagging Bustos with multiple body shots and taking advantage of the opportunity to throw uppercuts whenever the Argentine would duck down.   

The difference in hand speed was evident for all to see, especially Chantelle Cameron who effortlessly telegraphed and slipped the vast majority of the looping, slow-motion hooks Bustos would uncork. Cameron assumed full command from that point forward by dictating the pace, bouncing on the balls of her feet to beckon Bustos forward and proceeding to pepper her with quick combinations. 

A sizable mouse which took up residence beneath Bustos’ right eye near the conclusion of round seven could be directly attributed to the champion’s relentless jackhammer of a left jab. Due credit must be extended to Bustos, who was as game as they come and never betrayed the slightest hint of being on the verge of capitulation, but Cameron simply appeared to be relishing the opportunity to get in some overdue and much-needed ring time against a tough, experienced foe and rode into the final round as if in cruise control.

Rather than customarily touch gloves at the outset of round ten, the two warriors embraced in a classy show of mutual admiration, which they had also done at the previous day’s weigh-in and would again at the tolling of the final bell. To the surprise of no one, Cameron retained her titles with a clean sweep of all three scorecards. 

What next? Who next? Chantelle obviously wants to follow through on the grand design of facing Kali Reis to become undisputed champion at 140 pounds, but isn’t ruling out the possibility of moving down to 135 for a potential super clash with Katie Taylor, or jumping up to welterweight to tackle Jessica McCaskill, both of whom are the sovereign rulers of their respective divisions.  

***

Former IBF bantamweight champion Maria Cecilia Roman (16-6-1), who had her four-and-a-half-year reign ended by Ebanie Bridges on March 26, presented a significant step up in opposition for up-and-comer Ellie Scotney on Saturday’s undercard.

At 24, Scotney is only three years removed from a decorated sojourn in the amateur ranks and is fifteen years younger than Roman, against whom Ellie was making the maiden defense of her WBA intercontinental super-bantamweight title, claimed this past February by edging out a decision by the slimmest of margins over Jorgelina Guanini.

A spirited scrap from the opening bell, Roman’s age was in no way a detriment to her brand of walk-forward offense, as she willingly took the lead in engaging with her younger, more sprightly adversary. Using the patience, technique, and ring IQ developed and sharpened throughout the course of her amateur career, Scotney made Roman’s aggression work against her. 

Comfortable in her ability to work off the backfoot, Ellie racked up the early rounds in her favor by counterpunching quickly and sharply. The middle rounds were contested more so at close quarters, and Scotney was able to outwork Roman by mixing body shots with short chopping uppercuts to her best advantage before settling back into her more familiar rhythm of boxing from the outside and moving around the ring to get Roman to swing and miss more often than not.

An accidental clash of heads in round nine produced a crimson river which cascaded down Roman’s face, originating from a cut near the hairline. With bloodstains smearing her yellow tank top, Scotney closed the show with the confidence and ring generalship you would expect from a veteran fighter, taking a unanimous decision (100-90, 99-91 x2) from the seasoned but clearly out hustled Maria Cecilia Roman. 

Despite having only five outings on her professional resume, Scotney is convinced that this impressive performance proves that she is ready for prime time. Asked during a post-fight interview who she would like to square off against the most in the near future, Ellie specifically called out Roman’s successor Ebanie Bridges, saying that “the time for talking is over.”

Ramla Ali Chronicles Her Journey from Refugee Camps to the Olympics in "Not Without a Fight"

 

Ramla Ali’s story is a uniquely inspirational one, the tale of a remarkable young woman who has evolved from war refugee, impoverished immigrant, and bullied youngster to professional boxer, fashion model, and social activist.

And yet, as she wonderfully illustrates throughout the 327 pages that comprise Not Without a Fight, there are deeper dimensions to Ramla than any, or even all, of these easily-applied labels can begin to convey. In keeping with Ali’s defiance of convenient identifiers, her book itself refuses to fall comfortably within any one category.

It is an autobiography, yes. One which will undoubtedly be of immense interest to sports enthusiasts, and boxing fans specifically. But hers is a human interest story of the profoundest sort that transcends the perceived barriers of age, gender, religion, nationality, or sexual orientation. Subtitled 10 Steps To Becoming Your Own Champion, Ramla’s book is also a self-help manual born out of an empowering struggle for survival. Ali concludes each of the ten chapters, or rounds as she likes to refer to them, with a brief synopsis of relatable takeaways and vital life lessons learned from the experiences chronicled in the preceding pages.

Before settling into this format, Ramla begins her book by jumping ahead into a preface that details a humiliating episode from her younger days as a stranger in a strange land, having finally settled with her family in East London after they had fled from war-ravaged Mogadishu. On a walk home one day, she suddenly found herself surrounded by three menacing boys on bicycles, one of whom ripped the hijab off her head, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it, symbolically desecrating the Islamic faith represented by Ramla’s traditional head covering, before riding off and laughing all the while.

It is somewhat safe to assume that contemporary Western notions regarding life in Somalia are heavily influenced by popular culture. Take, for instance, the depictions of seafaring pirates, a corrupt and oppressive military dictatorship, and more than thirty years of still ongoing civil unrest and bloody skirmishes in movies like Black Hawk Down and Captain Phillips. These portrayals are true and mostly accurate, of course, but they don’t allow for an appreciation of the cultural pride and natural beauty of Ramla’s homeland, attributes she only came to discover and fully recognize decades after leaving the Horn of Africa far behind.

Boxing would play an instrumental role in kindling Ali’s desire to shed her insecurities and combat prejudicial standards which would one day put Ramla in the unforeseen position of taking up the fight to represent her birthplace in a revolutionary way completely without precedent.  

Ali was just a toddler when her eldest brother Abdulkadir, disobeying orders not to play outside due to constant air strikes, was gravely wounded by shrapnel from a mortar dropped onto their property. Because the roads were so badly cratered from the relentless carpet bombing, Ramla’s father and uncle had to push her brother to the hospital in a wheelbarrow. Despite their heroic efforts, Abdulkadir couldn’t be saved. He was only twelve, or so her family believed. Official recordkeeping was either nonexistent or at the very least an extremely low priority in Somalia at the time, and many of the documents that might have been registered were destroyed along with the buildings in which they were contained. Even to this day, Ramla’s true age is simply a best guess. This is likewise the case with her other siblings except for the youngest, Yahya, who was born after they vacated Mogadishu as a direct result of Abdulkadir’s death.

Abandoning all but the most necessary of their personal possessions, the Ali family’s exodus began on an undersized, overcrowded boat which was tossed around on stormy seas for the weeklong duration of the journey toward Kenya, one which not all aboard would survive. Subsisting on sugar cubes, a lice-infested Ramla herself became very ill, and her mother feared that another of her beloved children would perish. Fortunately, this was not to be.

Her family was shuffled between various refugee camps, and had the few belongings and little money left to their name stolen at one of them. By no small miracle, not to mention the necessity of falsified passports, the Ali family made safe passage from Kenya to England, although it would take several years and changes of address for them to be finally granted permanent housing in the London district of Whitechapel.

Social isolation gave way to loneliness and depression, and an adolescent Ramla sought the escapism of literature, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice being her favorite book. Overindulging in sweets and crisps offered its own type of temporary comfort, but naturally led to her gaining weight which only gave Ramla’s adversaries yet another reason to ridicule and ostracize her.          

Ramla’s mother insisted that a gym membership just might be what her daughter needed to improve her physical condition which would, in turn, nurture her emotional well-being. This plan succeeded all too well, as Ramla would incidentally fall in love with boxing, a pastime her mother, who adhered to a very strict interpretation of Islamic teachings, considered “haram,” or forbidden. Not only was boxing off limits to Somali women, the sport had been banned in the African nation altogether in 1976.

Galvanized by attending the 2012 Olympic quarter-final match between Natasha Jonas and Katie Taylor at London’s Excel Arena, Ali pursued her newfound passion nevertheless. Concealing this admittedly farfetched dream from her family was certainly the most formidable obstacle Ramla had to overcome in her determined drive toward becoming a boxer, but it was by no means the only one. She found female inclusion at the neighborhood gyms and athletic clubs initially challenging, was sexually accosted by one of her first coaches, had her nose broken by a careless male sparring partner, and battled an often aggressive self-doubt which was made even worse when having to suffer through setbacks both in and out of the ring. Mentally and physically, she persevered thanks to her intelligence, fierce resolve, and fighting spirit, as well as the camaraderie of her friends and peers, and the unconditional love and moral support of her husband and coach Richard.

Ramla came out on top of Sweden’s 2013 Golden Girl Box Cup tournament with a victory over hometown favorite Sara Svensson, the first time a Muslim woman had won an English amateur boxing title, but was crushed at not being extended an invitation to become an official member of Team GB. Fortunately for her, Ali had learned that when doors are closed in your face, one must use ingenuity and persistence to create your own opportunities in life.

The undertaking that being left off the Team GB roster resulted in was her decision to fight for her homeland, which was anything but an arbitrary or easy choice to make. But it was the only option left if she was going to make her dream a reality. Because boxing was outlawed in Somalia, this meant that Ramla and Richard needed to establish a Somali boxing federation from scratch, get him registered as an officially recognized coach eligible for international competition, and enter her into as many tournaments as humanly possible.

Without giving too much of the book away, it goes without saying that their venture was a successful one. Nike hopped on board to sponsor Ramla, and it was participating in a photo shoot for one of their ad campaigns featuring influential young athletes that helped pave the way toward a future in the fashion industry which she continues to enjoy in conjunction with boxing as a force for change.  

More than just a pugilist or a pretty face, Ramla did the previously unthinkable last summer by bearing the flag of Somalia, and wearing a powder blue track suit to match, as she marched through Japan National Stadium as a representative of her beleaguered but proud birthplace in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Disappointing as it surely was to have been eliminated in the opening round by Maria Claudia Nechita of Romania, the fight result did nothing to diminish the awe-inspiring historical significance of the moment.    

Now a flawless 5-0 as a paid prizefighter, Ramla has her sights set on another landmark achievement—becoming the first boxer fighting out of Somalia to win a world championship in the professional ranks. She will be the first to tell you that of all her meaningful triumphs, the most joyous one was when she received a phone call from her mother expressing genuine acceptance and heartfelt congratulations to her daughter who, out of love and respect, had kept her boxing exploits a guarded secret for so many years.  

In 2018, Ramla founded The Sisters Club, which began as a not-for-profit safe space for Muslim women to train with or without wearing their hijabs, learning self-defense free of charge and free of the fear of being discriminated against.

To show how dramatically her life has come full circle, Ali, a former war refugee whose displaced family survived thanks in part to the assistance of NGOs, became an ambassador to UNICEF. She traveled to Jordan in 2019 to visit Syrian refugees at the Za’atari camp, taking the time to speak with, and offer self-defense instructions to the appreciative and enthusiastic young girls.

Difficult as the struggles to come to terms with these hurtful labels are, being cast by yourself or others as an outsider or misfit doesn’t have to be the defining stigma that we all too often make it into. In Not Without a Fight, Ramla Ali describes how we can turn these barriers into building blocks which can strengthen our self-confidence to where we feel not only able to, but obligated to stand up for ourselves and our beliefs, ultimately connecting with a community of like-minded and supportive individuals working harmoniously toward a shared goal.    

“We have to be open to new things, even if they don’t work out. Don’t be afraid of putting yourself out there,” Ramla writes in Round Seven of her book. “The very act of trying something out tells yourself and the world that you are brave, you are ambitious and you are a force to be reckoned with.”

Joanne Metallo Hits the Rewind Button on a Boxing Life Lived in Fast Forward

“I don’t brag. I don’t lie.”

Joanne Metallo, one of the many unfortunately unknown female prizefighters of the 1980s, made sure to emphasize the power and permanence of her moral code after telling me that she earned the nickname ‘Nonstop’ because of how often peers would remark to her that she boxed “like a movie in fast forward.”

She made a regular habit of roughing up, or at the very least holding her own against, male sparring partners, was once ranked #2 in the world, and earned the right to what should have been three world title shots. Denied two of these pivotal opportunities by essentially being too tough for her own good during sparring sessions with the would-be defending champions, Metallo was further hamstrung by her refusal, based on the personal principle that “my body is my temple,” to submit to what she believed to be unnecessarily invasive pre-fight physical exams. Subsequently, she was confined to the margins or footnotes of boxing’s history books, if not absent from them altogether. Until now.

Growing up in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Joanne describes her young self as a “hyperactive kid” and “a tomboy” but says that she was not terribly athletic. This was mostly due to the fact that, in her gym class, pretty much the only physical activities she and her classmates would be encouraged to participate in were to “square dance or kick around a medicine ball.” 

Left to her own devices, the rambunctious Metallo would work off some of her nervous energy and adolescent angst by getting into street fights, all of which she would win. Joanne and a neighborhood boy named George Langer would meet up once a week to bust each other up until they were both black and blue. She did, however, meet her match in the family’s pet spider monkey, Georgie. Becoming increasingly unpredictable and unruly over time, Georgie bit Joanne on four different occasions and eventually had to be sent away after clawing at her eyes, scratching the lids.

In 1975, after moving to Easton, Pennsylvania, Metallo began competing in karate tournaments every Saturday, achieving a second-degree black belt under the tutelage of the renowned Grand Master Al Smith. She handed unbeaten Pearl Brown her first defeat in the finals of a non-contact point kumite tournament, taking the defending champion’s title in the process. Specializing in the disciplines of full-contact and point kumite, weapons, and breaking, Joanne won what she estimates to be very nearly 5,000 trophies over a ten-year period.

She transitioned to amateur kickboxing and broke her opponent’s ribs with a left hook in her very first match. Joanne main evented every one of her bouts in Easton or nearby Allentown and Bethlehem, some of which were contested against men. Joanne is proud of the close connection she formed within the black communities of Maryland and Washington DC, especially enjoying being taken out for spiced crabs which quickly became her favorite dish. 

Earnie Butler fought as a welterweight in the 1950s and, well before the autumn of 1982 when Joanne Metallo first showed up at his door, the 58-year-old coach had been mentoring aspiring prizefighters out of St. Anthony’s Gym. Future world heavyweight titleholder Larry Holmes had been a young protégé of Butler’s before parting ways with the self-professed “maker of champions” to forward his lofty career aspirations.

“Earnie helped me out. He taught me in the gym,” Holmes said in 1984. “He took me to meet Muhammad Ali in 1971 and that was how I got to be Muhammad Ali’s sparring partner. But, as time goes by, you move on. Earnie didn’t have the connections.” Understandably stung by being cut out of the picture by Holmes, Butler nevertheless insisted that they had remained friends, and the hometown heavyweight champion would continue to stop by St. Anthony’s from time to time. 

Earnie would hand out business cards which read, “If you can take discipline and hard knocks, Earnie Butler will teach you how to box.” No stranger to hard knocks, Joanne Metallo eagerly accepted Butler’s challenge. To put Metallo to the test, Butler threw her in the ring with Derrick Parks to see what she could do with the Golden Gloves champion who Larry Holmes was working with toward the potential goal of making the Olympic boxing squad. Joanne told me she beat Parks up so badly that “he didn’t talk to me for three months.”

This was all the convincing Earnie needed. “I don’t treat her any different than my other boxers. I don’t worry about her. Hell, she’s sparring with boys. She’s doing fine,” he boasted to an enquiring reporter. Metallo had also cut up welterweight prospect Chester Baxter in a brutal sparring session.

“Joanne surprised me in a lot of ways,” Butler elaborated. “I didn’t think she’d stick it out or be as tough as she was. But the more often she came to the gym, the more interest I took in her. I wish some of my male boxers were as sincere and dedicated as she is.”

Metallo’s first professional boxing match was a November 1982 win over Bitzy Blair in the nation’s capital. She said that Bitzy had a “wicked overhand right” and “screamed at me when I stepped on her foot.” Cora Wiles, the boxing commissioner for Washington DC, agreed to let Joanne bypass the customary medical exam under the condition that she instead present a release form signed by her personal physician affirming that she was fit to fight.

Fighting out of Easton, Pennsylvania and weighing in at 120 pounds, with a record of one win and no defeats, Joanne Metallo was moments away from engaging in the very first women’s boxing match contested in the state of Maryland in front of 1,400 spectators at the Baltimore Civic Center on May 5, 1983. Across the ring from Joanne, occupying the opposing corner, stood Doreen Lefeged. All six-feet of her, and then some.

Lefeged, who they called ‘Brown Sugar,’ had been a hoops star at the University of Maryland where, in 1978, she and the lady Terrapins beat the North Carolina Tar Heels to win the first ever women’s ACC tournament. Before she gravitated toward boxing, Lefeged was scouted by the Houston Angels of the Women’s Professional Basketball League, a predecessor to the WNBA of today. By contrast, Metallo, who indulged admittedly unrealistic dreams as a young girl of becoming a basketball star herself, was a mere five-foot-two. When they came toe to toe, the size differential was almost comical.

Both women were 26 years of age, but that’s where the similarities began and ended. Besides her significant height advantage, Lefeged also outweighed Metallo by twenty pounds. Joanne recalls Lefeged being “super strong” but toughed out a four-round draw with her regardless. “This is not a dance. This is a fight,” a disgruntled Earnie Butler admonished Metallo afterwards in the damp, humid locker room down in the bowels of the Civic Center. “I want you in the gym tomorrow.”

Metallo and Lefeged were paired up in a rematch five months later in Washington DC. “Three commissions met at the fight with Doreen Lefeged and said in the physical room I can fight but the only way I’ll win is if I get a knockout,” Metallo recalls. “I said ok, because Doreen got a physical and I would not let them check my breasts. I can’t do that. I fight with my gloves, not with my tits!”

Joanne remembers that, by the end of their four-rounder, Doreen was “bleeding like hell” but finished the fight on her feet which put Metallo in a no-win scenario and left Commissioner Cora Wiles little other choice than to disqualify her for refusing the pre-fight physical.

Her rough and tumble scraps with Doreen Lefeged resulted directly in a scary incident which played out in Virginia while Metallo was being introduced to the crowd before squaring off against Betty ‘Mean Jean’ Garner. She remembers jumping up and down in her corner as the ring announcer called out her name, and that is all she remembers between then and when she regained consciousness soon after.

She immediately jumped to the logical conclusion that she had gotten knocked out, only to be informed by Earnie Butler that Betty Garner never even got the chance to lay a glove on her. Impossible as this was for her to believe, Butler told Joanne that she had dropped to the canvas during the ring introductions and gone into seizures. Ringside spectators and Betty herself, with whom Metallo stayed for one week after the fight in Garner’s Washington DC apartment, confirmed that this was in fact the case.

A brain scan revealed the troubling presence of a hematoma that could be traced back to a headbutt Metallo had been on the receiving end of, courtesy of Doreen Lefeged. A three-month regimen of blood thinners was required to dissolve the last stubborn clot. Incidentally, Joanne couldn’t help but chuckle while recalling for me that the neurologist who treated her was named—I shit you not—Dr. Skull. She reassured me that she had gone for sporadic follow-up scans, joking about the fact that “they checked inside my head but couldn’t find anything.” 

Because Earnie Butler refused to work with her until her blood clot had healed completely, Joanne kept her diagnosis concealed from trainer Willie Howard who coached her in his Bethlehem gym and had her run six miles each day. During this time, Metallo admits to going ahead with a karate exhibition versus Tanya Coleman, with whom she would later contest two boxing matches which resulted in one win and a stalemate.

All the while, Metallo had been revolving her workout schedule and road trips for her fights around the swing shift she was assigned to at the Pfizer chemical plant in Easton where her wide variety of responsibilities included driving forklifts and payloaders, monitoring oxidation levels in the metal tanks, cleaning out the industrial waste dams, and changing the outdoor valves no matter how inclement the weather. During breaks, or before or after punching the time clock, Joanne would run the hills on the property in back of the Pfizer factory. 

Not to mention she had been juggling her flourishing boxing career with the continuation of her karate and kickboxing tournaments before it all got to be too much and something had to give. “I couldn’t keep up with karate and boxing together,” said Joanne, “so I chose boxing.”

Metallo converted from a southpaw kickboxer into an orthodox pugilist, known for her “unbelievable left hook.” Her Sunday punch certainly caught the attention of Larry Holmes who told Joanne he would do what he could to see to it that she was fast-tracked to a title shot against junior-lightweight champion, Toni Lear Rodriguez, and promote it himself.

The problem being, Joanne was already in the process of finalizing a move to the west coast, leaving behind Larry Holmes, Earnie Butler, and Pfizer, as well as her thousands of karate trophies. Tournament director Francisco Conde picked her trophies up “by the truckful” so that he could hand these recycled awards out to winners of the tournaments at his dojo after Joanne took care to remove the metal plaques. She forgot about one thing, though. Conde’s victorious students began asking him who this Joanne Metallo was and why her name was written in permanent marker on the bottom of their trophy.

After relocating to Los Angeles, Metallo was guided by manager, trainer, promoter, matchmaker, writer, publisher, and president of the WBB (Women’s Boxing Board) Johnny Dubliss, a jack-of-all-trades when it came to female prizefighting. They would go running every morning, Joanne recalling how he would have her sprint up and down the bleachers of a local high school to build her stamina.

Metallo credits Archie Grant, who had trained heavyweight champion Mike Weaver and was working with Dora Webber at the time, with helping her cultivate a “super aggressive” style with fast hands and pendulum-like head movement that evolved out of the peekaboo turtle shell stance in the style of Archie Moore she had started out with under Earnie Butler. She also trained with Ed Cousins who helped her develop her rhythm, timing, and counterpunching technique. 

After having sparred with her back in Maryland a few years prior, Joanne also got to reconnect with Lady Tyger Trimiar. The trailblazing boxer, who had been among the first three women to be granted a license to fight professionally by the New York State Athletic Commission in 1978 and went on to win the world lightweight championship six months later, had likewise pulled up her roots from the east coast and replanted them in Los Angeles, seeking bigger and better opportunities. Their rapport would blossom into a friendship that will come back into play a little later and still exists to this day.  

“Fighters can back out if you beat them in their gym before the fight,” Joanne told me. “You will end up with no-shows.” This was a lesson Metallo learned the hard way on two separate occasions. Not long before her scheduled shot at Toni Lear Rodriguez in Fort Belvoir, Virginia on October 15, 1986, Joanne worked Rodriguez over “worse than any man I ever fought” in an abbreviated sparring session.

“She was tricky and had smart moves, but she quit after one round,” attests Metallo. Come fight night, the champion was nowhere to be found. Del ‘La Rose’ Pettis, a scrappy Filipina fighter rising up the rankings, agreed to take the place of Rodriguez as a last-minute substitute and mixed it up with Metallo in what Joanne maintains was the toughest fight of her career.

It didn’t help matters any that she entered the ring “overconfident” and admits to having taken Pettis lightly. Metallo was happy to come away with a draw, as well as a newfound respect for Pettis. Nevertheless, Joanne believes that this may have been something of a set-up on the part of the promoter and matchmaker who she says “did me dirty” by tossing her in against a fight night replacement who just so happened to be conveniently standing by, in tip top shape and ready to rumble.

Speaking of Del Pettis, in August 1987 she would end up stepping in to get the crack at the vacant WBB super-featherweight title opposite Laurie Holt which had been intended for Metallo. The originally scheduled fight had to be postponed when Holt, the first licensed female boxer from the state of Maine, broke her thumb. But this turned out to be a moot point for Metallo, who breached the contract by vetoing the clause which called for a full body physical exam.

Laurie Holt claimed the championship by TKO in the main event at Chicago’s Lakeshore Athletic Club, stopping Del Pettis on cuts when referee Stanley Berg halted the bout after the fifth round despite Pettis otherwise enjoying a clear advantage over Holt throughout.        

Metallo regularly engaged in gym wars she categorized as “bloodbaths” with the Webber sisters, renowned prizefighting twins Cora and Dora, and she feels that it was her ruthless aggression during those sparring sessions that caused Dora to skip town two weeks before their super-lightweight title fight at the Los Angeles Forum. It took two years for a still furious Joanne to track Dora down in Paterson, New Jersey thanks to getting her phone number from a mutual acquaintance. 

“I called her and flew to New Jersey. She picked me up and I stayed with her one week,” Metallo recalls of Dora, whom she found to be nothing short of hospitable. “But I’m glad we got in the ring. I was very mad at the no-show at the Forum and I stuck a hard blow in,” she continued, recounting their animated go-round at Webber’s gym during her visit. “She flew back in the corner. I had to do what I had to do to get even.” There were evidently no hard feelings on the part of Dora, who Joanne remarks “was very nice” and “took me back to the airport to go home to California.”

Del Pettis once again reenters our story, this time joining forces with Metallo to take part in the hunger strike being carried out in April 1987 by Lady Tyger Trimiar in an attempt to bring nationwide attention to the inequities suffered by female boxers. To increase their visibility, Trimiar, Metallo, and Pettis took advantage of the opportunity to march on Caesars Palace in Las Vegas the weekend of the Marvelous Marvin Hagler vs. Sugar Ray Leonard super-fight in a protest that would also benefit from shining a light on the less than progressive attitude toward women’s boxing exhibited by the event’s promoter, Bob Arum. 

Their mission statement called for economic parity, major network coverage, corporate sponsorship, and compensation from promoters for loss of livelihood. “If you are Black or a woman of any race, then you should know the frustration that I feel being denied employment,” Metallo is quoted as saying on the front of the pamphlet listing their demands that the three boxers would distribute to anybody who would take one. “I reminded ex-champion Larry Holmes that there were times when Black men were not allowed to fight for money. Has he forgotten? Will he help?”

Metallo doesn’t recall whether or not she got a response from Holmes, but Lady Tyger has told me that Mike Tyson was the most recognizable of the male fighters to sign her petition and support the cause. The consumption of water and V8 juice was all that was permitted during the hunger strike, and Joanne’s conscience forced her to confess early on to Lady Tyger, who was the only one of the three women to fast for the full 30 days, that she had cheated by having potato chips.

“I loved wars,” Metallo reminisced. “I beat some guys so hard I noticed they left the gym on Broadway. I went to a gym nearby and there they were!” One of them had been a sparring partner in Thomas Hearns’ training camp. Johnny Dubliss arranged for Joanne to work with a woman who was a “large Marine” but just a beginner, so he cautioned Metallo to go easy on her in what was to be no more than a confidence-building exhibition. With a film crew present, Metallo evidently couldn’t curb her enthusiasm.

“We worked on a karate mat in a dojo,” Joanne recalls. “After the first round, Johnny said she’s going to quit, lighten up the punches.” Metallo complied, but was angered when the news report skewed the story in favor of the newcomer, presenting the footage in a way that made it appear as though she had gotten the better of Joanne, a seasoned professional. 

While working as a baggage handler for an airline, Metallo pinched a nerve in her neck which not only caused excruciating chronic pain but severely compromised the mobility in her left arm. Warned by doctors that undue aggravation of the nerve could result in permanent paralysis of her arm, Joanne stepped away from boxing. It was with great reluctance that she hung up the gloves, her laments that “it was hard to get fights” and she “made very little money” notwithstanding. Despite being featured in the main event in each one of her fights, her purse money never exceeded $300 during her boxing career.

This was especially unfortunate seeing as though Metallo says that right around then, she had been communicating with Christy Martin about traveling down to her gym in Miami to do some sparring with the ‘Coalminer’s Daughter’ and potentially set up a fight between the two. Win, lose, or draw, an opportunity of this magnitude at this time would have, at the bare minimum, allowed Joanne to share center stage with the biggest name in women’s boxing up to that point.  

Metallo was asked to play a bit part in the 2000 movie Knockout, the story of a young woman named Isabelle Alvarado (played by first-time actor Sophia Adella Luke) who follows in her father's footsteps by entering into the world of boxing. Despite the fact that her pinched nerve prevented Joanne from participating in any physical contact during filming, she was featured in several sequences of a training montage that made it into the final cut. 

Fredia ‘the Cheetah’ Gibbs, who, like Metallo, was a martial artist, kickboxer, and prizefighter, was assigned the substantial part of Tanya ‘Terminator’ Tessaro, the film’s main antagonist, while Dora Webber and world title contender Marsha Valley would appear in cameo roles. Valley would later go on to hold the dubious distinction of getting knocked out not once, not twice, but three times by Ann Wolfe.

Known as ‘The First Woman of Boxing,’ Jackie Kallen, who began as Thomas Hearns’ publicist and made headlines by managing James ‘Lights Out’ Toney, played the part of an official with the WFBA, a make-believe sanctioning body, in Knockout. Four years later, Meg Ryan would portray Kallen in the biopic Against the Ropes. Also featured in Knockout was ‘Sugar’ Shane Mosley as a color commentator.

These days, Joanne enjoys spending time playing with her dogs, working outside, maintaining her property, and keeping up the best she can with the current state of female prizefighting, contentedly avowing that “boxing changed my life.”

Sources:

Kevin Cowherd. Two Ladies Who Swing (Baltimore Evening Sun, May 6, 1983)

Kevin Cowherd. Female Boxers: An Uphill Climb (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 9, 1983)

Neil H. Greenberger. Women to Fight on Taylor-Sawyer Undercard Tonight (Washington Post, October 1, 1983)

Joe Kita. One of the Boys (Allentown Morning Call, May 7, 1983)

Ray McHugh. Nobody’s Gonna Beat Him (Pittsburgh Press, September 23, 1984)

Pete Shaheen. She’s a Real Knockout (Allentown Morning Call, May 7, 1983)

Paul Sullivan. Laurie Holt vs. Del Pettis—10 Rounds for WBB Championship Belt (Chicago Tribune, August 17, 1987)

Lear to Fight in Virginia (Scranton Tribune, October 14, 1986)

Author Interviews with Joanne Metallo

Don't Call it a Comeback: Maureen Shea Outlasts Calista Silgado on a Quest to Take Back Super-Bantamweight Division

 

One week after Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano made history as Madison Square Garden’s first female main eventers and women’s boxing’s first million dollar co-headliners, Bronx-born southpaw Maureen Shea, known as ‘The Real Million Dollar Baby,’ returned to her old stomping grounds—more or less—for the first time in twelve years to pound out an eight-round decision over Calista Silgado at St. Johns University’s Carnesecca Arena in Queens.  

But don’t call it a comeback. The 41-year-old former world champion insists on referring to her triumphant homecoming, not to mention career victory number thirty, as a “take back.” Looking to be in the best condition of her life and still competing at super-bantamweight, Maureen is back in action after two and a half years, since stopping Martina Horgasz in a pre-pandemic bout, with her eyes on the prize—namely a run at another world title. Maryelin Rivas, Yamileth Mercado, Cherneka Johnson, and Segolene Lefebvre, you have been put on notice. 

Shea’s fighting spirit was something of a birthright, encoded into her DNA thanks to an ethnically diverse heritage responsible for her being blessed with what she calls “Mexican soul and Irish pride.”

Bullied as a young schoolgirl, Maureen always tried her best to fight back against her attackers, even when she was ganged up on and hopelessly outnumbered. Her teens brought about a reversal of fortune in terms of popularity and Shea admits to indulging in too much partying for her own good. It was at one of these get togethers that the Tyson/Holyfield bite fight happened to be playing on TV, and Iron Mike’s display of primal rage stirred something deep within her.

Initially, Maureen first stepped into a gym in a misguided effort to maintain her physical appearance and thereby please the abusive “juicehead” boyfriend with whom she would spend three years before extricating herself from the volatile situation and instead continue her newfound love affair with boxing.

After proving her worth in a trial by fire sparring session at Gleason’s Gym, Shea was given the opportunity to work with renowned trainer Hector Roca. It just so happened that Roca had been tasked with overseeing Hilary Swank’s preparation for her role in Clint Eastwood’s Million Dollar Baby, and arranged for Shea to become her sparring partner throughout the process. Swank would end up modeling part of her character of Maggie Fitzgerald after Maureen, hence Shea’s ring moniker.

Eight months following the theatrical release of Million Dollar Baby, and four weeks after the cancelation of the Christy Martin vs. Lucia Rijker super-fight which borrowed its promotional tagline ‘Million Dollar Lady’ from Eastwood’s movie, Shea debuted as a professional prizefighter with a first-round knockout of Camille Casson at the Westchester County Center in White Plains.

Despite being dropped and outpointed by Kim Colbert on two scorecards in May 2006, the split decision in favor of her adversary was later ruled a no contest when Colbert failed a post-fight drug test, preserving Maureen’s unbeaten streak which would extend to thirteen fights, racking up impressive victories over the likes of Olga Heron and Olivia Gerula along the way, and lead to her first world title opportunity.

Featured third from the top on a February 21, 2009 card at Madison Square Garden with Miguel Cotto and ‘Irish’ John Duddy occupying the two main event slots, Shea was pitted against 8-3 Kina Malpartida for ownership of the vacant WBA world super-featherweight title. It was a good, close scrap but Maureen was already slightly behind on the cards when she was sent to the deck with just twenty-five seconds remaining in the tenth and final round. Eddie Cotton waved off the fight to give Malpartida the win and the world championship, the first for a Peruvian woman.

Back in action six months later, Shea’s fortunes continued to take a temporary downturn with another stoppage loss, this time to future super-featherweight world champion Lindsay Garbatt at Connecticut’s Mohegan Sun Casino. However, this stands as the last defeat on Maureen’s ledger, as she has gone 16-0-1 over the twelve intervening years, all the while claiming the NABF featherweight strap, WBC interim world featherweight title, and IFBA world super-bantamweight championship.    

A tough customer and former world title challenger with eleven years’ worth of sprightly slugfests to her credit, Calista Silgado was an inspired choice to oppose Shea for this “take back” fight in Queens Saturday evening. Coming into the bout with a career record of 19-13-3, the 34-year-old Colombian’s resume is peppered with heavy hitters like Alejandra Marina Oliveras, Paulina Cardona, Yazmin Rivas, Maryelin Rivas, Jennifer Han, Shelly Vincent, Mikaela Mayer, Hyun Mi Choi, and both Serrano sisters—Cindy and Amanda.  

Maureen Shea dug deep to best the rugged Silgado over eight rounds Saturday evening in what she intends to be the first step on her mission toward a 122-pound world title belt, or just maybe all of them. 'The Real Million Dollar Baby' will make whatever sacrifices are necessary to see her vision through to completion. And you can take that to the bank.       

Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano Surpass Great Expectations in Historic Fight for the Ages at Madison Square Garden

 

“…and still..!”

Those two words, delivered with great enthusiasm and consequential gravitas by ring announcer David Diamante following a deliberately and appropriately dramatic pause before which he had read the previous two split verdicts as well as the deciding tally of 96-93, were all anybody needed to hear. Which was a good thing, because the rest of Diamante’s sentence was immediately drowned out by an audible tidal wave of passion and emotion the likes of which Madison Square Garden has rarely, if ever, experienced before the night of April 30.

Amanda Serrano, with the Puerto Rican flag draped across her shoulders, bit down on her lower lip and threw her head back in understandable disappointment. Lifted into the air by her trainer Ross Enamait, a jubilant Katie Taylor pumped her fist and pounded her chest.

If you were perhaps expecting Serrano to storm out of the ring in disgust without offering congratulations to Katie, or else snatch the microphone away from Taylor to cry “robbery,” then you don’t know Amanda very well at all. She epitomizes class, grace, and humility. So too does Katie, for that matter. A cross word was never spoken between the two before or after the fight. That’s simply not the way they’re wired.

As it should have been, Katie and Amanda embraced at center ring, both battered warriors posing for the cameras with their arms around one another. This was no phony post-fight photo-op with forced smiles, but a genuine display of mutual respect and admiration. After all, before sharing that hug, Serrano and Taylor, as million-dollar-making co-headliners, shared the Madison Square Garden ring for ten electrifying rounds on boxing’s biggest stage before a raucous sold-out crowd with so very much on the line.

The stakes could not possibly have been any higher. The undisputed lightweight championship of the world. Pound for pound supremacy. The public perception of the legitimacy of women’s boxing. And their rightful place in history.

Though the outcome had to determine a lone victor and, on the unfortunate flipside, a single vanquished gladiator, there was absolutely no loser that night. In the sense that Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano elevated women’s boxing through the glass ceiling and into the stratosphere by their momentous performance, everyone walked away a winner. But, how did we get here in the first place?

As for me personally, I had the privilege to be present at the Ford Amphitheater on August 21, 2016 to witness the grudge match between Heather Hardy and Shelly Vincent. Once bitter rivals and now good friends (boxing can be a beautiful thing that way), they hit each other that afternoon with everything but the wooden planks on the Coney Island boardwalk before a partisan assembly of rowdy fight fans. Because of their New York and Rhode Island-based contingencies, this slug fest might have been of merely regional interest had it not been nationally televised on NBC Sports Net, albeit in a competitive timeslot opposite the closing day of the 2016 Rio Olympics.

2005 was the last time we saw the possibility of a legitimate super-fight that put women’s boxing in the mainstream conversation when Christy Martin and Lucia Rijker were contractually obligated at long last to settle their differences at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Just a week and a half away from the ‘Million Dollar Ladies’ clash, Rijker ruptured her Achilles tendon during a sparring session. The bout was postponed, never rescheduled, and Lucia retired while Christy would drop a lopsided decision to Holly Holm, winning only three of her final eight fights in an ultimately elusive quest for career victory number fifty.    

There have been no shortage of epic contests in the meantime, of course. Go back and watch Layla McCarter and Belinda Laracuente throw leather over ten 3-minute rounds in 2006 and tell me women can’t fight. Or, how about Melissa Hernandez going toe to toe with Chevelle Hallback in an instant classic that stole the show right out from under headliner Holly Holm? Speaking of Holly, her pair of 2008 scraps opposite Mary Jo Sanders are more than worthy of your time. And that’s not even chipping enough off the proverbial tip of the iceberg to keep you drink cold.

As far as casting Taylor and Serrano as potential rivals is concerned, the road to Madison Square Garden took three and a half years to traverse. As the scheme was originally hatched, this matchup was supposed to have headlined MSG’s Hulu Theatre on International Women’s Day 2020, capping off a three-fight deal that Amanda had inked with DAZN in partnership with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing seventeen months earlier, right around the time Katie beat her big sister Cindy in Boston.

When those plans fell through, Hearn arranged for Taylor vs. Serrano to be the chief support bout to the May 2 interim WBC heavyweight title fight between Dillian Whyte and Alexander Povetkin in Manchester, England. And then came Covid.  

Eddie Hearn hosted the Matchroom Fight Camp in the backyard of his Brentwood estate that summer and targeted August 15 then ultimately the 22^nd as the new date for the women’s mega-bout. Negotiations, like the world itself at that time, went all to hell and Taylor faced Delfine Persoon in a rematch instead.

The official announcement came at the end of January that Taylor vs. Serrano was a done deal for April 30. Not only that, they would be top-billed at Madison Square Garden with each woman guaranteed a seven-figure payday. This news aroused great excitement, but also left several question marks hanging in the air.

Could a boxing card headlined by women in the big room at Madison Square Garden sell a respectable amount of seats? Would the fight itself live up to the hype? Even if it did, would anybody care? The answers to all of those concerns and more would be a resounding and emphatic “yes!”   

Just for starters, the demand for fight tickets reached a fever pitch which produced the second-highest grossing pre-sale in the Garden’s history. Attendance is said to have reached full capacity at 19,187 by the time the pair of main event fighters made their entrances, and the Garden’s guest list reads like a who’s who of women’s boxing.

Among the current world champions, title contenders, and rising prospects seated at ringside were Seniesa ‘Superbad’ Estrada, Mikaela Mayer, Alycia Baumgardner, Terri Harper, Marlen Esparza, Ramla Ali, Virginia Fuchs, Miriam Gutierrez (who had opposed both Katie and Amanda), Christina Cruz, and Serrano’s protégé Nicole Ocasio. Claressa Shields and Jessica McCaskill joined the DAZN broadcast team to provide color commentary for what would be a record-setting 1.5 million viewers.

McCaskill’s predecessor Cecilia Braekhus, former WBC/WBA world featherweight champion Jelena Mrdjenovich, and former WBC super-welterweight titleholder Mikaela Lauren were also spotted among the faces in the crowd throughout the world’s most famous arena. Laila Ali ventured to Manhattan to show her support, as did Laila’s one-time foe Christy Martin, who was accompanied by her wife Lisa Holewyne, herself a prizefighter from the recent past (the two actually squared off against one another in 2001).

In the discussions leading up to the Taylor/Serrano super-fight pertaining to its historic context, many accolades were heaped upon Martin and Ali—and deservedly so. But the widespread narrative unfortunately seemed to reach back no further, as if it had been Christy and Laila alone who were somehow solely responsible for smashing down the doors that provided the entry way for this groundbreaking event. The point of origin goes back much, much further than that.

Let’s start with Kathy Collins and Andrea DeShong, the first women to compete in a professional boxing match at the Garden in 1996, who are two of the unsung giants on whose shoulders Taylor and Serrano proudly stood. One year prior, Collins fought Laurie Bishoff at the Westbury Music Fair on Long Island in what was not only the pro debut for each of them, but the first officially sanctioned women’s bout in New York State, approved by then-Commissioner Randy Gordon. On July 16, 1979, Gladys ‘Bam’ Smith won a six-round decision over Toni ‘Leatherneck’ Tucker at Harlem’s 369^th Regiment Armory, although neither fighter was licensed by the NYSAC.   

Which brings us to Lady Tyger Trimiar, who I had the indescribable pleasure of being seated beside in a VIP section of Madison Square Garden last Saturday. From time to time, especially as the hour drew near for the evening’s featured attraction and the rabid Irish fans competed with their Puerto Rican counterparts by bellowing voluminous chants in support of their chosen one, she would slowly look across the wide expanse of the arena from one side to the other, taking in the panorama of gleeful insanity enveloping her and loving every minute of it.

“I always knew women could draw if only given a chance,” she would say to me. Her smile was genuine and infectious, her pride evident and earned the hard way. Having applied for and been denied a boxing license in 1974, Lady Tyger pursued her dream nevertheless, competing in exhibitions or out of state matches while openly declaring her intention to forcibly remove barricaded doors from their hinges to allow women to walk in behind her, and advocating for the right for female fighters to be allowed to compete in the Olympics. During her professional boxing career and beyond, she would never get to see the inside of Madison Square Garden unless she bought a ticket to watch others fight there.

After lengthy legal battles with the New York State Athletic Commission, Trimiar, along with Cathy Davis and Jackie Tonawanda, would finally attain her license on September 19, 1978. Six months later—though in San Antonio, Texas and not her home state of New York—Lady Tyger would outpoint Sue ‘KO’ Carlson to win the world championship in the lightweight division, the same weight class in which Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano were vying for the undisputed title.

To me, this attached even more poetic significance to the fact that Lady Tyger got to be there in person to witness her lifetime of struggles and accomplishments—which include a month-long hunger strike in 1987 to call attention to the plight of female boxers—come full circle at a sold-out Madison Square Garden where two women were fighting in the main event for the very first time.

Enter Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor. Literally. Their ring walks were given the appropriate pomp and circumstance befitting the occasion, preceded by performances of the Puerto Rican, Irish, and American national anthems. Both fighters seemed to sense the magnitude of what they were walking into. Serrano smiled and waved to the masses as she made her way toward her date with destiny, and even Taylor, known for having one of the more impenetrable poker faces in all of boxing, couldn’t resist the opportunity to gaze appreciatively from ringside all the way up to the rafters, soaking up every ounce of this unprecedented atmosphere.

You couldn’t help but get goosebumps. Even referee Michael Griffin later confessed to being swept up in the splendor before the first bell rung and the realization sunk in that there was work to do as well as history to make. As I had done with Hardy vs. Vincent six years ago, I opted not to take notes or keep score so that I could be present in the moment and simply allow myself to experience the intensity pulsating throughout the building like some sort of entity taking on a life of its own and assuming control over every fiber of my being. One from many.

Suffice it to say that the early rounds were incredibly close, as neither fighter was fully able to dictate the pace or impose her will. Katie used her exemplary hand speed, feints, and lateral movement to get off flurries of punches while simultaneously evading Amanda’s considerable firepower. This is not to say that Serrano did not enjoy her share of success, but it was fleeting for the time being. This made it deceptively tough to tell in real time who was getting the better of the other, and would be reflected in the disparity of the scoring on all three judges’ cards.

This would all change in the fifth round when the Puerto Rican southpaw did what she does best which is cut off the ring, close the distance behind her jab, bang to the body, and land a multitude of vicious hooks with both hands. Taylor had never been in danger like this before, but then again she had never been in the ring with a beast of this caliber before.

Fans leapt to their feet, whether anticipating or fearing the inevitable knockout blow which never came. Regardless, a thunderous ovation accompanied both women back to their respective corners when the bell sounded. That Katie withstood Serrano’s onslaught and finished the round on her feet can only be a testament to her resilience and inner fortitude.   

A battle-damaged Taylor, looking much the worse for wear with blood streaming from her broken nose and lacerations to her eyebrow and scalp, returned to action and hung on for dear life when necessary to weather the storm and regroup over the next two rounds while Serrano applied constant pressure in the hope of closing the show in grand, decisive style.

Not only did Katie survive a very close call, but rallied when it mattered most to shift the momentum back in her direction over the final three rounds. A seven division world champion, Amanda might have jumped up two classes to take this fight but carried the extra pounds well, exhibiting no signs of labored breathing even in the late going. 135 is not exactly unfamiliar territory to Serrano, and she had just come off a lightweight tuneup against Miriam Gutierrez. However, she appeared to ease off the accelerator just as Taylor was being rejuvenated by a second wind, allowing the undefeated, undisputed lightweight titleholder to finish strong, lump up Serrano in the final frame, and take her belts and unbeaten record home with her.

Lest we forget, and not hastily throw them in as an afterthought, unified super-middleweight champions Franchon Crews-Dezurn (WBC/WBO) and Elin Cederroos (WBA/IBF) also clashed earlier that evening in a winner-take-all showdown. Not having lost since her pro debut when she was outpointed by her amateur teammate and personal friend Claressa Shields (in what was the two-time Olympic gold medalist’s first pro fight as well), Franchon bludgeoned the previously undefeated Swedish belt holder into a bloody mess over ten gory rounds to consolidate all of the 168-pound straps.

In the second bout of the undercard, former Olympian Skye Nicolson improved her pro record to a perfect 3-0 by dropping and outpointing Shanecqua Paisley Davis to pick up the unanimous six-round decision. Competing for the third time in just eight weeks, Skye became the first Australian female boxer to fight at Madison Square Garden. A lot of history was made that night.   

As we celebrate last Saturday’s landmark achievements, let us also take the time to acknowledge the significant contributions of the countless pioneers who have been bearing the flag for female prizefighting for centuries.

Yes, you read that correctly. Centuries. As in the bareknuckle era, as far back as the early 1700s when the ‘European Championess’ Elizabeth Wilkinson reigned supreme. The mantle was carried into the 19^th Century by the likes of Hattie Stewart, Hattie Leslie, and Alice Leary who then passed the torch to Polly Burns, Barbara Buttrick, Pat Emerick, JoAnn Hagen, and Phyllis Kugler who shone as brightly as they were permitted to throughout the early-to-mid 1900s.

With the path to forward progress illuminated by their forebears, fresh trails were blazed in the 1970s and 80s by Lady Tyger Trimiar, Sue Fox, Shirley ‘Zebra Girl’ Tucker, Theresa Kibby, Caroline Svendsen, Squeaky Bayardo, Karen Bennett, Gwen Gemini, Diane Syverson, Baby Bear James, Joanne Metallo, Toni Lear Rodriguez, Graciela Casillas, Cora and Dora Webber, Britt Van Buskirk, and many others besides.     

They all made possible the achievements of more modern day warriors such as Christy Martin, Kathy Collins, Andrea DeShong, Deirdre Gogarty, Lucia Rijker, Jane Couch, Sumya Anani, Laila Ali, Ann Wolfe, Fredia Gibbs, Holly Holm, Mary Jo Sanders, Regina Halmich, Anne Sophie Mathis, Eva Jones Young, Chevelle Hallback, Belinda Laracuente, Melissa Hernandez, Layla McCarter, Tracy Bird, Alicia Ashley, Heather Hardy, Shelly Vincent, and, with my most humble apologies, simply too many more to mention here. But, hopefully you get the idea.

None of us stand alone. To borrow from the African proverb, “it takes a village,” and the present women’s boxing community is a tightly-knit yet inclusive and ever-expanding one that is born out of a long, illustrious lineage.

The two brightest stars in New York City this past Saturday were not in the nighttime sky, but in the boxing ring. Katie Taylor and Amanda Serrano unquestionably made their many generations of peers beam with pride by blowing the roof off Madison Square Garden as if to show women from across the globe and all walks of life that the sky is the limit as long as you have the audacity to reach for it.

“Question what you want, but never question my heart,” Amanda wrote in an Instagram post four days after the fight. “The person I fear doesn’t exist. Get it right.”