A History of Women's Boxing
Page 39
Lou DiBella, a senior vice president at HBO Sports responsible for boxing (who went on to become a boxing promoter, and in the late 2000s began putting women on his fight cards), said, “It’s pure exploitation.” He went on to articulate HBO’s position on broadcasting the sport, saying, “Televising women’s boxing isn’t in our immediate plans. It has such a long way to go before it’s considered a world-class sport, we’re not looking at it even though it would boost ratings one time.”[10]
With the actual fight night came more controversy.
MacGregor, with a three-inch height advantage, seemed to tower over Chow who stood five-feet, two-inches tall. From the outset, MacGregor peppered Chow with an unrelenting assault whilst her opponent covered up, ducked, backpedalled out of the way, and complained to the referee.
The fight fans in attendance, 2,768 cheering spectators—including many women who had come out to cheer on MacGregor—were becoming antsy at the obvious mismatch, thus it was no surprise when MacGregor swept all three judges’ cards. Afterward Chow said that he’d had an episode of high blood pressure in the hours before the match, which was treated with medication. He went on to claim he “didn’t feel right” and that he didn’t believe he “got whipped.”
The crowd, however, “roared with delight at the decision in her favor” having already “booed Chow for his defensive, lackluster effort.”
Regardless, MacGregor showed excellent boxing skills. The female fans in attendance were ecstatic with her win, telling reporters the fight broke “a lot of barriers” and that being in the arena was like “taking part in this big event in history.” Still another woman said, “We’ve come a long way.”[11]
The next day, Laila Ali proved victorious in her battle, defeating her opponent, April Fowler, by knockout at thirty-one seconds into the first round.
Ali’s dominating and reasonably skilled performance, however, seemed to sum up many of the concerns being raised about women’s boxing. From the moment her opponent started fighting, she swung wildly with no ring skills whatsoever. Asked later about the KO she said simply, “I got knocked down and I stayed down. I wasn’t getting any more [money] for getting up.”
Sportswriter Ron Borges, pushing on the theme, wrote:
For every skillful fighter like Ryker [sic], there are 100 women like Fowler. Out of shape and unskilled, they fight with their head down, arms windmilling, looking like a barroom brawler after a long night tapping a keg. For women’s boxing to ever approach acceptance, it must lose that sideshow flavor and develop real fighters. Ali at least is trying to do that, but there are so few like her that it’s a struggle to find worthy opponents.[12]
It had been MacGregor’s contention that there weren’t any skilled fighters willing to take a fight. That Chow wasn’t particularly skilled didn’t help MacGregor’s argument. Regardless, the bout touched a raw nerve in the sport: While women’s boxing was barely tolerated, there was an almost visceral response to women being in the ring at the same time as men.
This was reminiscent of how Belle Martell was once hounded from the ring more than a half century before when she had dared to enter it as a referee at men’s fights. While women were now able to legally officiate, entering the ring with gloves to encounter a male opponent still seemed to be a taboo that was not to be crossed.
The theme of sexualizing women’s boxing was also at play with the press vilifying Mia St. John for posing in the nude and otherwise making a mockery of the ring with mismatched fights and sexualized antics. Ron Borges voiced even more frustration when he wrote, “[Lucia] Ryker [sic] was recently dropped by promoter Bob Arum not because she lost a fight, because she never has; he dropped her because he believes he has a better shot at making money promoting a Playboy model.”[13]
Borges’s conclusion, however, was to state that while the issues might be different, professional women’s boxing was proving to be the equal of men’s boxing after all—corrupted by mismatched fights, poor paydays, poor promotion, and exploitation of the boxers.
HBO’s Lou DiBella, in considering the triumvirate of issues that had propelled women’s boxing into the news, didn’t have much to say about Mia St. John. He also continued to contend that the MacGregor fight was nothing more than “exploitation.” He did, however, say that HBO’s position on airing women’s bouts “may change with the emergence of Laila Ali, who is clearly a box-office fighter.”[14]
The fact that her debut fight had been a mismatch seemed less important to DiBella, a boxing insider who was well aware of how the game was played. Laila Ali not only possessed real boxing skills (these would only develop further with the right handlers), but more importantly she had a charisma that seemed to embody what Jackie Kallen had called the “full package.”
As Muhammad Ali’s daughter, she was also boxing royalty at a time when there was nostalgia for the Muhammad Ali boxing era. The hope was that she might recapture some of the magic of boxing not only for women’s boxing but for the sport as a whole. Whether she would deliver was a question to be answered over time—but whatever the case, she had certainly made an impression on the boxing public and her presence was soon to become a factor in the further development of women’s boxing.
Boxing Daughters
Laila Ali, you wanted to know if I was a professional fighter, now you see. I’ll kick your butt, Laila Ali. I’m challenging you. Don’t make me come and get you.
—Jacqui Frazier-Lyde, February 6, 2000[15]
To sit in a boxing gym in 1999 was to observe females aged from seven to seventy learning the old one-two. The growing popularity of the sport also extended to a unique group of women led by Laila Ali who captured the imagination of the sporting world both negatively and positively: daughters of famous boxers. With the coming of this second generation of boxers also came all of the championship hype most artfully expressed in that bombastic era when Muhammad Ali was the king of boxing.
An improbable daughter moving into the spotlight was Jacqui “Sister Smoke” Frazier-Lyde whose father was the legendary heavyweight champion “Smokin’ Joe” Frazier. Growing up in Philadelphia, Frazier-Lyde had been a gifted high school athlete in basketball, hockey, softball, and lacrosse—and a scholar. Her prowess on the field won her a sports scholarship to American University where she was captain of the women’s basketball team. From there, she went on to get a law degree at Villanova University and, after a stint as a public defender, opened her own law practice. She also married Peter Lyde, an official of the Laborer’s International Union in Philadelphia, with whom she raised three children.
At the time of Laila Ali’s debut in the ring, Jacqui Frazier-Lyde was an overly committed workaholic well on her way to her thirty-eighth birthday. A couple weeks after Ali’s debut, Philadelphia Daily News reporter Bernard Fernandez had contacted Frazier-Lyde because he thought an interview might be newsworthy—and he was right. Frazier-Lyde recalled he had sought her out to talk about Laila Ali:
[He] asked me how I thought I would measure up to Laila.
Well, sometimes I can say things off the top of my head, but I am very competitive. And I just said—it just came out: ‘Oh, I could whip her butt.’ Well, since that day I’ve been training two hours a day, every day, at my dad’s gym.
By December things had heated up. The Muhammad Ali–Joe Frazier rivalry had always been an intense side story in boxing. Their last fight in 1975, the “Thrilla’ in Manila,” or “Ali-Frazier III” had been a total war—with both boxers having fought beyond their endurance until Frazier’s trainer, Eddie Futch, threw in the towel just before the fifteenth round, a call that Futch recalls as having devastated him. With a 2-1 advantage to Ali in the Ali-Frazier series, Jacqui Frazier-Lyde figured that if she defeated Laila Ali, she would even the score. “It’s about history, competition, family and legacy,” she said.[16]
Her father wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea, but thought her progress in the ring was great. Speaking to reporters at an open workout, he smiled and t
urned to remark on her progress after she finished her rounds on the speed bag, saying, “This is after two months, can you believe it?”
Laila Ali’s camp was prosaic, vowing not “to address it” for the time being. Laila Ali’s trainer summed it up when he said, “Let [Frazier-Lyde] get in the ring and become a professional. Then we’ll deal with it.”[17]
Frazier-Lyde’s debut bout was held in early February 2000 at the Cultural Center in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Her opponent was a novice boxer named Teela Reese who had lost her only other professional contest by KO in the first round. Reese was reportedly a substitute for Frazier-Lyde’s original opponent who was rumored to have had real boxing skills.
Not unlike Laila Ali’s debut, the crowd of thirty-five hundred fans was sorely disappointed by a poorly fought match that lasted all of 1:23 into the first round. Frazier-Lyde dominated Reese, with a barrage of “wild punching and mauling” before backing her into the ropes and raining another onslaught of punches onto her. After absorbing the battering, Reese turned her back and referee Gary Rosatto stopped the contest, giving Frazier-Lyde the TKO win.[18]
To taunting chants from the fight fans, it was clear that Frazier-Lyde had “a long way to go before she could make a compelling match with Ali, who is polished and much more skillful than her counterpart.”
Regardless of how the fight went, with a win in hand, Frazier-Lyde told the press she had a message for Ali. “Laila Ali, you wanted to know if I was a professional fighter, now you see. I’ll kick your butt, Laila Ali. I’m challenging you. Don’t make me come and get you.”[19]
Unbelievably, Frazier-Lyde was reported to have earned $25,000 for her night’s work, an unheard-of payday for a debut fight and exponentially higher than the typical payout for female fighters, who were often only making $200 to $300 a round. A case in point was Reese, who only earned $800. Frazier-Lyde had also lined up a fight for the following month against another novice fighter in Chester, West Virginia—part of a three-fight deal with promoter Don Elbaum.
A few days after Frazier-Lyde’s debut bout, Laila Ali—who was also starting to earn $25,000 a contest—was asked whether she’d consider fighting her. In response, Ali told reporters she wasn’t interested in a match because it wouldn’t be “competitive.” She went on to say, “She (stinks). The only comparison with her dad is her looks. . . . She fights that bad, she should keep her mouth shut.”[20]
Another boxing daughter who “bit the bug” was twenty-three-year-old Freeda “Big” George Foreman, third eldest of champion heavyweight boxer George Foreman’s children. She had been watching—first Laila Ali and then Jacqui Frazier-Lyde—from the sidelines. Feeling inspired by both fighters, Foreman intended to box professionally as well, timing her announcement for just after Frazier-Lyde’s debut.
Asked why she wanted to box, Foreman, the single mother of a four-year-old daughter, said, “My goal is to change history and knock Laila [Ali] out.” Later, making reference to the infamous 1974 matchup in Kinshasa, Zaire, between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, nicknamed the “Rumble in the Jungle,” she said, “It’s not revenge, but the opportunity is there for me.”[21] That was taken to mean not only the prospect of an avenging rematch but also the chance to earn considerable paydays alongside the other daughters in the ring.
Foreman, five feet, eleven inches and weighing in at 180 pounds, had been working in customer relations for United Parcel Service near her family home in Greenville, South Carolina. She quit her job in February to begin training in Colorado Springs for a projected debut fight in April. Asked how her famous father felt about her entering the ring she said, “It’s an opportunity that my father does not exactly embrace. He flat-out doesn’t like it. But I do have his love and support. That’s what counts.”[22]
Foreman eventually had her debut bout on Father’s Day, June 18, 2000, in a fight promoted by Don Goossen at the Regent Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. The Father’s Day card featured not only Foreman in her debut fight, but also thirty-four-year-old Maria Johansson, daughter of the Swedish boxer and world heavyweight champion Ingemar Johansson, who had defeated Floyd Patterson by TKO in the third round of their 1959 title bout. To round out the card, Goossen had a famous boxing son, Hector Camacho Jr., as the main event, fighting Manard Reed in a twelve-round light welterweight championship fight which Camacho Jr. won by KO in the fourth round.
In the days leading up to her debut, Foreman’s father had reportedly given her a $15,000 check to walk away from the fight—matching her fee. But she refused it and went ahead with the bout as scheduled. Foreman’s opponent was Laquanda Landers, a hairdresser from Milwaukee with a background in Tae Kwon Do making her debut as a pro fighter. Landers came in weighing 168 pounds—twelve pounds lighter than Foreman. She was also six inches shorter, putting her at a decided disadvantage.
Foreman sent Landers to the canvas with her first punch. In the second round, Landers managed to survive until she was dropped again at 1:44 into the round, but this time, she was unable to get up. Foreman took the fight—however inelegantly—by KO.[23]
The debut bout of the other boxing daughter on the card, Maria Johansson, was less successful. She’d managed to draw an actual boxer from Indiana named Karrie Frye who was eight years younger and sported a 4-1 record including a first-round KO win in a fight promoted as the Midwest female light heavyweight championship. A four-round slugfest, Johansson was badly bruised and lost the bout by a unanimous decision. She fought one more bout and, losing by KO, retired from boxing shortly thereafter.
Two more daughters of boxing legends also boxed professionally: Irichelle Duran, the twenty-three-year-old daughter of the renowned Panamanian world champion Roberto Duran, and J’Marie Moore, daughter of the famed heavyweight boxer Archie Moore. In addition, two sisters of professional boxers began boxing professionally. Tracy Byrd, whose brother Chris Byrd had been an Olympian in 1992 and was now angling for his chance at heavyweight title, was one. Tracy Byrd had begun to box in August 1996 and by 2000 had amassed an 11-2 record, including one title. She was considered a legitimate boxer and retired in 2006 with a 13-10-1 record.
Melissa “Honey Girl” Del Valle (Salamone), in winning the New York Daily News Golden Gloves in 1996, became the first sister of a Golden Gloves champion to win the award. Her brother, Lou “Honey Boy” Del Valle, had become a champion four years earlier. Melissa Del Valle (Salamone) went on to an illustrious career in women’s boxing (30-6-1), winning major titles plus the reputation as a “real” boxer. She was also the subject of a feature-length documentary film released in 2000 by filmmaker Joe Cardona. Entitled Honey Girl, it appeared in film festivals and on the Miami-based PBS affiliate. Despite critical acclaim it did not gain much traction or notice due to the release of filmmaker Karen Kusama’s feature Girlfight in the same year, which was garnering a lot of press attention.
In the case of Irichelle Duran, her father reportedly didn’t speak to her for a week after she made her announcement. She went on to a difficult loss on points in her first fight against another novice fighter named Geraldine Iglesias at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and had two more bouts before retiring from the ring with a 1-2 record.
J’Marie Moore had entered the ring in 1997—two years before Laila Ali’s 1999 entrance. This would make her the actual “first” boxing daughter, but she never garnered much attention before Ali began fighting. Moore’s second—and last—fight was in 2000. She won by TKO in the third round against Anita Wells, who was making her debut.
In the pecking order of notoriety and publicity, Laila Ali and Frazier-Lyde rose to the top—both in terms of money earned and fighting potential. Ali in particular also managed to carve out a spot for herself among the “elite” women boxers and was spoken of in the same league as Christy Martin and Lucia Rijker. By 2003 even the Internet site Women Boxing Archive Network (WBAN) began making mention of her boxing abilities.
The preponderance of famous daughters in the sport, however, seemed to ch
ange the entire calculus of women’s boxing. The national conversation about the sport was increasingly focused on boxing daughters as a “sideshow” and “circus.” What was absent was mention of the increasing number of skilled women who were serious contenders. These fighters filled out the undercards of boxing events every weekend at venues large and small across the United States—and increasingly in Europe and South America—but often did so with little notice except on the website WBAN, an increasingly important resource for news about the sport started by former boxer Sue TL Fox in 1998. (A magazine called Lady Boxer had also begun publication in 1997. It provided news about fights, articles about fighters, and photographs—many of them taken by Mary Ann Owen, who was starting to make a name for herself as a women’s boxing photographer. Boxing Illustrated magazine also published articles about the state of women’s boxing, rankings, and other stories, and even the venerable The Ring magazine published pieces about women fighters.)
The growing ranks of professional women boxers were also still appearing on television in local markets and occasionally on cable or pay-per-view, although the latter were typically “name” fighters that included Christy Martin and Mia St. John, who continued to appear on every Oscar De La Hoya fight card. In St. John’s case, however, press reports continued to castigate her appearances as a “sideshow.”
An opening salvo about the state of women’s boxing in the United States came from Tim Graham, writing for ESPN, the day after Frazier-Lyde’s debut fight. In his estimation female boxers “had laid a foundation of legitimacy,” particularly “talented ladies like Christy Martin, Lucia Rijker, Sumya Anani and Kathy Collins.” He went on to write, “It wasn’t implausible the sport one day might be mentioned in the same breath as basketball or tennis.”