Fighting at Madison Square Garden, the first woman to do so since Jackie Tonawanda’s kickboxing bout, was a dream come true for both fighters. Unfortunately for Hamaguchi, Matthews’s brawling style overpowered her early and Matthews went on to become the first woman to win the Golden Gloves—having defeated Hamaguchi by a knockout in the first round. As Hamaguchi told WBAN in an interview several years later:
The toughest loss for me ever in any sport was losing to Jill Matthews at [Madison Square] Garden. Media from all over the world was there, so I felt like I embarrassed myself in front of everyone on planet earth. Ironically that was my first sparring session. . . . Imagine fighting at Madison Square Garden with zero rounds under your belt. . . . There weren’t enough women to spar with at that time.[10]
In assessing the state of women’s boxing, Don King had recognized something else—the dollar-sign potential of promoting the sport at a time when the novelty of female fighting was beginning to pique some interest again. What he saw in Christy Martin was a woman well on her way. All that was needed was to promote her to the next level by putting her on the fight cards of upcoming championship fights—while making certain that her opponents brought at least reasonably equivalent boxing skills into the ring against her.
The “Pinking” of the Ring
After recognizing the opportunity to propel women’s boxing onto a larger stage, Don King astutely made his move to get into the game by signing Christy Martin to a contract for a minimum of four fights. Sending shockwaves through the boxing world was nothing new for King, and he immediately put his promotional acumen to the test by taking Martin’s career in a different direction. She would no longer be fighting in small venues in Florida, the Virginias, or Michigan. King wanted more for her and immediately began slotting her onto fight cards he had running in one or another of the Las Vegas casinos.
King banked on Martin being able to capitalize on her strong record of achievement and she delivered—improving her winning streak and making a name for herself on the undercard of the huge championship bouts of King’s stable of male boxing stars.
Originally thinking he would put Martin on his December 18 card, the details fell through because—as the press reported—King couldn’t find her a suitable opponent. He certainly wasn’t going to take any chance of failure as he wanted an opponent who would enhance Martin’s record and get the crowd behind her as the bruiser who could win by KO or TKO almost every time. This meant finding fighters who would enter the ring without necessarily having the professional experience or a huge number of wins to otherwise counter Martin’s ever-sharpening skills.
There was one other difference too: Christy came into the ring clad in pink satin shorts and a matching pink satin jacket and wearing a hint of lipstick, claiming, “That’s just the way I go to the fights.” This was something most fight fans had never seen—an attractive woman who could actually box well. The effect on the crowd was mesmerizing.
Martin’s first fight after signing with Don King was a case in point. It was set for January 29, 1994, in Las Vegas at one of boxing’s most prestigious venues, the MGM Grand Hotel. The press covering the event made note of Martin’s appearance on the undercard of the Julio Cesar Chavez v. Frankie Randall fight, but what set Martin’s fight apart was also a bit of luck. Christy’s debut as a King fighter just happened to be on the night Chavez suffered his first loss in a career of ninety professional fights.
In the run up to the bout, King told reporters that the fight was “a giant step for womankind.” For her part Martin said, “I don’t consider myself a pioneer. I just want to be the one everybody remembers.” She added, “We’ve been more or less taken to a new level now. You can’t even say this is a dream come true. This is a fantasy.”[11]
Even without the knowledge of what was about to happen in the main event, Martin’s performance alone in the ring was stellar and played to the crowd. From the onset she circled her opponent, Susie “Sluggin’” Melton, and was quick to score with a series of punches. Melton had actually begun boxing professionally in 1982 and purportedly had a 16-1[12] record coming into the bout (though her current Boxrec list of fights shows her as 2-2). She had even fought against Andrea DeShong in 1989 (losing on points) and had been scheduled to fight Martin the year before at the Township Auditorium in Columbia, South Carolina—although the records ultimately list Martin’s opponent as a woman named Susie Hughes who was making her debut fight.[13]
Martin’s aggressiveness in the ring against Melton had the crowd roaring and firmly in her corner from those opening moments before Martin toppled Melton forty seconds into the first round of their scheduled six-round bout with a knockout punch. Standing in her corner, the pink-clad Martin basked in the sounds of a crowd going wild.
Her debut couldn’t have been more promising. She showed boxing skills and aggression, and she gave the crowd a KO—and she did it all in pink. Even so, King stated later that he was so nervous that he couldn’t watch.
Martin’s big win no doubt disappointed any naysayers who might have questioned King’s decision to put her on the card. King followed with a bout against the twenty-one-year-old Sonja Donlevy on March 4. That fight pitted Martin—fresh off her latest KO victory—against the novice professional from Richmond, Virginia, who was making her pro debut. As expected, Martin made quick work of Sonja and took the fight by TKO in the first round. It was to be Sonja’s only fight as a professional.
Don King’s ploy of pitting lesser-known fighters against a rising star was nothing new in the fight game. If anything, it gave credence to the idea that the seamy side of boxing—ringing up huge winning records for prospects—was the one place where men and women were actually equal. Promoters were out to make money on their fighters, even if it meant building up records with lots of quick KO wins in a series of mismatches with fighters who had no business being in the ring with such strong opponents.
Christy’s next fight was on the undercard of The Ring magazine’s 1994 event of the year—the storied “Revenge: The Rematches” fight card. The May 7, 1994, pay-per-view boxing extravaganza included the highly anticipated rematch between light welterweight Julio Cesar Chavez and WBC titleholder Frankie Randall.
Due to the quirks of the pay-per-view telecast—where the first few fights were not broadcast—what no one quite remembers about that night is that Christy, hoping to continue her eighteen-fight winning streak, fought a six-round bout on the card. In the run-up to that bout, Don King, ever mindful of his new hot “property,” had taken a promotional swing through Christy’s hometown of Orlando, Florida, touting Christy as “not one of those fighters who people look at and say she’s beat up and she’s dumb. She’s very articulate and is a lady who could really find other means of earning a living without going into fisticuffs,” adding that “organizations are commending us on giving women an opportunity,” and how “very happy” he is “to be the recipient of a positive note, instead of an arrow or a dart.”[14]
In the context of 1994, King’s comments were high praise indeed and by placing Christy’s next bout on the “Revenge: The Rematches” card, he was more than boasting about how he really felt when it came to the only female in his stable of boxers. Christy was a “keeper” and if King was going to put women’s boxing on the map, she was a more than capable partner with a running patter that sought to play down anything that hinted of feminism. As Christy was to put it later, “I’m not trying to put women in the forefront, and I don't even think this fascination [with women in the ring] has much to do with that. This is about Christy Martin.”[15]
For the fight, Don King had chosen the unknown Mexican boxer Laura Serrano, making her professional debut in the United States. The contest, though, was anything but the anticipated walkover he might have envisioned.
Laura Serrano was an accomplished soccer player who had taken up boxing ostensibly to lose weight while attending Mexico City’s National Autonomous University. Her experiences in the gym ignited her burni
ng desire to box competitively and she began training at the famed house of champions in Mexico City—the Nuevo Jordan gym. Her mother strenuously objected to her taking up boxing and Serrano had to overcome the skepticism of the crowd at Nuevo Jordan, who taunted and harassed her for daring to train. With perseverance and a dedication that rivaled the tenaciousness of the women who boxed in the 1970s, she won over her trainers who eventually gave her the same workouts and sparring opportunities as the professional male fighters at the gym—a story played out by many of the pioneer female boxers the world over.
Aside from her battles to gain entry into the world of boxing in Mexico City, her training had to be kept secret from the authorities because Mexican laws at that time made it illegal for her to fight (even as late as 1997). Serrano, who was also studying to be a lawyer, fought legal challenges on her route to eventually become a licensed fighter while clandestinely training.
Having sparred hard against male fighters and fought in a loose underground network of illegal fights, Serrano was more than ready to take on Martin for her debut fight in the United States. While a stranger to the professional ring in America, she was a fierce competitor with a will to win—and the boxing skills to back it up. In speaking of her years in the ring, the famous Mexican sports writer Ricardo Castillo has said she was “absolutely the finest woman boxer we’ve ever had.”[16]
It wasn’t often that two college-educated fighters would square off against each other—but such was the case with Martin and Serrano as they made their way into the ring to the barely audible applause of the early fight fans.
Famed boxing announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. grabbed the microphone and introduced the challenger, Laura Serrano. Lennon informed the crowd of her record of five wins, one loss, and one draw, with one win by way of a knockout—although there was no mention of how she had obtained her win-loss record. He went on to announce Christy Martin, wearing her characteristic pink boxing shorts with white trim, and introduced her as a three-time Women’s World Champion.
King had the clout to make certain there would be three seasoned Las Vegas fight judges ringside: Al Lefkowitz, Dick Hauck, and Al Siciliano. The equally experienced referee, Kenny Bayless (who had counted Susie Melton out), was announced as the “third man” in the ring—aligning with King’s strategy to heighten the legitimacy of Christy’s appearances.
From the moment of the opening bell to the end of the fight, the Martin-Serrano bout was something different for Christy. She was facing a fighter who could go toe to toe with her, trading jabs and hooks, uppercuts and straight rights, while dancing defensively around the ring. Exchanging hard shots and fighting with evident skill, both fighters engaged the crowd early on. While Christy was the aggressor in the first round, Serrano fought back admirably off the ropes going to the head and the body to push back against Christy with a “game on” expression clearly discernable in her eyes.
For the second round, Serrano came out swinging, landing a series of jabs and left-right combinations that momentarily stunned Christy. Fighting with equal intensity, Christy threw bombs to the body and the head that eventually backed Serrano into the corner. Serrano pivoted out for more back-and-forth punching that went on relentlessly until the bell.
The third round found both fighters engaged in an out-and-out war with no letup in intensity throughout the entire two minutes of the round. The fourth round was more of the same, as was the fifth, with both fighters jabbing and switching up with right-hand leads. Both fighters were clearly tired, but their bravura performance thrilled the cheering audience, who if anything saw Serrano pull ahead of Christy with cleaner shots and even more intensity, factors that were accounted for on unofficial score cards in the fourth and fifth rounds.
In the sixth round, Christy and Serrano had the crowd shouting and screaming as the two boxers showed what they were made of with toughness, crisp skills, and the temerity to fight and fight hard. After six nonstop rounds of flat-out boxing, the bout was judged a unanimous draw with the score of 57-57—in some quarters a gift to Martin that was greeted by a mixture of cheers and boos, but nonetheless, a battle of which both fighters could be proud. The score, more than anything, was a testament to Laura Serrano’s perseverance in the ring.
If ever two fighters were well matched in the burgeoning world of women’s professional boxing, they were Christy Martin and Laura Serrano. In the context of their fight, however, the untested Serrano was a huge underdog in comparison to the well-known, savvy professional. Serrano’s skills and heart made for an incredibly exciting match, certainly equal to the hype of the “Revenge: The Matches” fight card. Serrano solidified her appeal as one of the foremost fighters in women’s boxing in both the United States and Mexico. Still, Serrano felt she was robbed of the win but was gratified by the experience.
Under King’s promotional guidance finishing out 1994 and through 1995, Christy handily defeated her rivals by TKO or KO—continuing her trend of competing with women with much less ring experience. She was certainly open to fighting women with long records and real skills, but fighters were at times hard to come by especially on the kind of short notice typical of King promotions. Even so, by 1996, Christy had amassed a stunning 25-1-2 professional record. Clearly, Christy was on a roll as she prepared for her fight set for March 16, 1996. This fight would be different though. Don King had chosen to put her up against the highly experienced, hard-hitting Irish-born boxer Deirdre Gogarty, fighting out of Lafayette, Louisiana.
Deirdre “Dangerous” Goharty was not the most likely of boxing opponents. Born in Ireland, Gogarty’s father was a renowned oral surgeon and her mother was a dentist—far from the typical family background of a professional fighter. They were none too happy about her desire to box either.
“They told me horror stories about what could happen to my teeth and my jaw,” Gogarty told an interviewer, laughing at the recollection. “I kept it vague with them but after a while they had to accept it. They thought I was nuts. It’s interesting that all my sisters came to my fights but none of my brothers or my parents.”[17]
After working out in her hometown in Ireland, Gogarty moved to Dublin and began to train seriously—at first on her own because no one would coach her, but eventually with a former British light welterweight champion named Pat McCormack who’d fought in the late 1960s through the mid-1970s. It wasn’t an easy process, and speaking of those experiences Gogarty said, “I kept asking so many questions they kind of tolerated me. After Pat trained me for a while I asked him why he was doing it. He told me if his daughter was in boxing he’d want someone to show her how to defend herself.”[18]
In June of 1991, Gogarty had her professional debut against Anne-Marie Griffin in a six-round bout staged in Limerick, Ireland. Griffin was an experienced kickboxer who wanted to break into boxing, so Gogarty actually fought her first boxing match on a kickboxing fight card that was judged by kickboxing judges. While not sanctioned as a true boxing contest, it was “legal” for women to fight in Ireland under the rules of a kickboxing match—much as it was in the United States and other parts of Europe.
What seemed like an auspicious beginning—a win on points against her opponent—ended in a losing battle with the Irish Boxing Union (IBU) to gain approval to allow her to compete professionally as a true boxer. When asked why she thought the kickboxing-sanctioning bodies allowed women to compete and not the IBU, Gogarty replied:
It was a younger sport having started in the 1970s and was a little more open-minded. The boxing was much more traditional with a lot of old-schoolers. They claimed there were no facilities for women and that there wasn’t enough medical evidence to show that boxing wasn’t harmful. To me it was a lot of excuses really. One other reason might have been the quality of how women could box. They were not necessarily skilled at that time. What I don’t know is if they didn’t want to be embarrassed by it or if it was just too non-traditional.[19]
Not satisfied to sit and wait, nor to give up her dreams of being a
great champion, Gogarty managed to get a match in England—part of the thriving underground women’s boxing scene that included the future founder of the British Ladies Boxing Association, Sue Atkins, who had singlehandedly put British women’s boxing back on the map in the 1980s. As in Ireland, Gogarty found that women either fought underground or as part of kickboxing cards.
Her first fight in Britain was held in a seedy old venue—literally underground—in a small gym in the basement of the Park Tavern pub on the afternoon of April 11, 1992. Gogarty fought and won her second fight by a TKO in the fourth round of a six-round bout against Jane Johnson who, in speaking of the sport some time later, said, “Boxing is simply pitting your skill against another fighter, knowing that if you hadn’t trained properly you could get hurt—that’s what gives you the edge.”[20]
Of that time Gogarty remembers her trainer, Pat McCormack’s, prescience when he told her, “You’re opening doors ten or fifteen years down the line,” but what Gogarty wanted was “to walk through the door now.”[21]
After the fight and with the help of McCormack, she was able to meet with a British referee and former boxer named Paddy Sower. He’d helped her get fights in the U.K. and thought she had done very well. Learning of her frustrations, he told her about Beau Willford’s gym in Lafayette, Louisiana, where she might be able to train and have the chance to box legally.
Of those early years, Gogarty has said, “I had written letters to people in the U. S. about boxing and got back things suggesting topless boxing or mud wrestling. It was so disgusting. Then Paddy suggested I write to Beau. I never heard a word. He finally called nine months later saying Paddy Sower had called him.”[22]
Willford was not exactly enthused by the prospect of training a woman, but as he stated, “Paddy put the pressure on me. He reminded me that he’d done me a lot of favors. To be honest, she was forced on me. That goes to show you something.”[23]
A History of Women's Boxing Page 35