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.