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Christy
Martin....."I'm Not
Finished Just Yet"
By Bernie McCoy
May 12, 2004
Ralph Waldo Emerson, to my knowledge, was not a big boxing fan. Likewise,
I'm fairly sure he never heard of Christy Martin. However, one of Mr.
Emerson's better lines fits Martin's career arc quite well: "Do not go where
the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path, and leave a trail."
Before Christy Martin embarked on her boxing career, there was no clear path
for women in the ring. Since Christy Martin embarked on her boxing career,
almost every woman fighter has followed the trail that Martin left. Christy
Martin was to Women's boxing what Noah's flood was to precipitation; Martin
engulfed the sport, she was the "face" of the sport, the fighter that
everyone, no matter their interest or knowledge level, identified with the
sport of Women's boxing.
However, as Martin notes, getting to that point wasn't easy, it wasn't easy
at all. "A lot of people think I began boxing with the Gogarty fight (Martin
won a six round decision over a tough Deirdre Gogarty in March ' 96).
Nothing could be further from the truth. That bout was deep into my career
and before that fight, which was on a Mike Tyson card on PPV, there were a
whole lot of bouts where I received next to nothing for fighting; where I
was, literally, dressing in closets and stuck in dressing rooms with three
inches of water on the floor, and, in the days before the bout, I was out
selling tickets. Las Vegas and Tyson and PPV and the Sports Illustrated
cover didn't come without a whole lot of Punta Gorda FL and towns you never
heard of in West Virginia and Tennessee."
I asked Martin how she would, if given the chance, write her legacy in the
sport. After a moment, she said, "I really think I tried to fit in. I
brought a lot of excitement to the sport and to every fight I was in. I gave
it my all, every time out; I went out and took punches and threw punches
and, most of the time, I threw more than I took." However, Christy is not
quite ready for legacy writing, not just yet. She's back in the gym and
"working real hard for the last few weeks. It was off and on in the gym
since August, but now I'm back in earnest". Is it tough? "Its ' way' tough,
but, while I may be coming to the finish [of my career], I'm not finished
yet."
She's not finished, yet, simply because there something Christy "can't get
out of my mind. I'm haunted by the fact that I stayed on my knee against Ali
last August. I should have gotten up and kept fighting, but I looked over at
Jim (husband and trainer Jim Martin) and he was hollering ' stay down' and
that's what I did. I should have gotten up. Would the fight have turned
around, I don't know, maybe not? I thought Laila might have been getting
tired, but I just don't know. What I do know is that I shouldn't have stayed
on my knee, that haunts me."
Bad fights haunt good fighters and the Ali bout was, for Martin, a bad
fight. "Laila hurt me early, with, maybe, the first right hand she threw. I
thought she was going to come out and box me from long range, but, instead,
she jumped right on me. I was hurt in the first round, but I stuck around
until the fourth. I definitely want a return with Ali. Once I'm in the shape
I need to be in, I want to take a couple of fights and then step in with
Laila again. By that time, according to her (Ali), she will have taken care
of the fighters in her weight class and will probably be looking for one
more big fight. I think Laila will beat Ann Wolfe, who's a hard puncher, but
has a tendency to run out of gas after a few rounds. (Ali is scheduled to
fight Nikki Eplion on June 12 and has said she'll then "go up and fight the
winner of the Wolfe/Ward fight" [Wolfe literally flattened Ward in one round
on May 8]). Ali's schedule seems to coincide fairly well with Martin's own
timetable.
As far as Martin's "couple of fights", there's no shortage of quality
competition in her weight class, the most competitive in the sport. Still
around is her long time nemesis, Lucia Rijker, who is scheduled to fight
Sunshine Fettkether on May 20 in Holland. Once considered "the fight" in the
sport of Women's boxing, Martin/Rijker has lost some of its past luster.
However, if that match was made today, it could, conceivably, become the
first bout ever telecast on HBO; an assertion made, in the past, by Rijker's
current trainer and HBO commentator, Manny Stewart. Also,Sumya Anani is back
in the ring after a year's absence and would provide a very formidable
benchmark for Martin to gauge her fighting "shape" (Anani won a close
majority decision over Martin in December ' 98). Additionally, should
Fettkether beat Rijker in Holland (assuming, given Rijker's past history,
the fight happens), Martin/Fettkether would make a very compelling matchup.
Christy Martin's name and reputation continues to bring magic to the sport
of Women's boxing. She was the first of the women boxers in the sport's
heyday of the nineties and, for several years, she was the best, by a very
large margin. She's coming up on fifteen years in the ring and she did, for
a long time, single-handedly, provide national visibility for a sport that
had none, before she arrived on the scene. Like most of the best in other
sports and even the entertainment field, Martin went through her career
doing it "her way". As a result, she didn't make many friends within the
boxing community, but, in a real sense, making "nice" has never been part of
the deal in the sport of boxing. Answering the bell is what it's all about
and Christy Martin has done that as well as anyone else in the sport.
Many boxing "experts" will ridicule the idea of Martin climbing back into
the ring with a bigger, stronger woman who decisively beat her nine months
ago. Quite frankly, it may not be the best plan that Christy Martin has ever
come up with. However, one thing is irrefutable; considering what Christy
Martin has meant to the sport, considering the trail she has left for all
the women currently "answering the bell", Christy Martin deserves the
opportunity to try Laila Ali again.
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