(FEB 24)  At an age when most professional athletes might be winding down their career, Brenda Burnside started hers. And in a profession that has traditionally been “men only,” Brenda Burnside broke ground (along with a few noses).
 

At age 30, the Albuquerque, New Mexico native started training as a boxer and went pro two years later, getting 20 professional fights

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over five years under her belt before retiring.  To say Burnside is a dynamo is an understatement. She’s determinedly dedicated and fiercely focused. It’s more than her tiger stripe-riddled body that make her “The Tiger.”

And yet, as she sits in the jungle garden of her now-permanent Costa Rican home, Burnside gives off little of the ferocity that earned her the Women’s International Boxing Federation rank of 2nd in the world (junior bantamweight) in October of 2000. Instead, she talks softly and enthusiastically about the kids here to whom she teaches boxing, gymnastics and body movement and proudly about the women she’s empowered with self-defense classes here. “I’m doing what I want to do, living how I want to live,” she says, with a serene look on her face. “When I came here, it felt like coming home. The people were nice to me right off the bat; nicer than any people in my whole life.” She’s become a fixture in the community, known as much for her unusual body art as her dedication to giving back to this town that welcomed her with such open arms. “I wanted to make a difference here. Between teaching the women and the kids, I’m doing what I wanted to do.”

Her trademark tiger stripe tattoos started with a couple of fight losses she felt she should have won and were perhaps fixed. “Because I didn’t get the trophy, I decided to give myself one. That’s how I got my first tattoos. It was the trophy that no one could take away from me.” She went on to get tiger stripes which cascade down her shoulders and upper arms, ripple down her left leg and shield her entire back. “It all has personal meanings, each part stamps an experience of my life in my skin.”

She strikes a stunning and memorable picture, not to mention one that’s more than a little intimidating. Which is part of the point. “Half of women’s boxing is show, so people would remember you,” she says. “I didn’t mind putting on a show; it was fun!” To round our her fierce look, she got tiger eye contact lenses which she enjoyed donning before a fight when meeting her opponent, “just to freak her out,” she laughs. They came out once the fight began for regulation purposes, but by then she didn’t need them. Her raw, untiring energy and relentless punches were the real freak out for her opponents. She recalls several opponents spending more time running away from her than making genuine contact, even though many of them were as much as 10 years younger than her. “Forget younger girls. They’d come out all high energy, punching away and I’d take my time warming up. I’d go like a train. And when they were all tired out, I’d go to town.”

It was recognition that many of her opponents were younger, however, that drove Burnside to train all that much harder. “I knew I had to, because I was older, but I also knew I could outdo them because of my drive.” She trained eight hours a day, six days a week, eating every two hours in between. Sometimes she’d wake up in the middle of the night and train. A tri-athlete and 25-year martial arts practitioner, part of her training included running up mountains from 7,000 to 9,000 feet. She sparred sometimes with 175-pound men. “I was really scrappy. Those guys would tell me I could hit as hard as any guy in the ring, which was a big ego boost.”

Her record stands at seven wins, 11 losses and three draws, and yet her ranking put her second from the top because, upon re-evaluation of the tapes, she was declared the better fighter in the matches the record states she lost. About those matches, she says, “I didn’t care. If I did my best and I was better than the last time, if I felt I had learned something, I’d fight again.” She also recalls that even when being declared the looser, and sometimes especially because she was, fans would line up around the corner of the building waiting for her autograph. “It was the people, the fans, who kept encouraging me, who inspired me to keep fighting. I thought I’d do it once and see if I liked it. Twenty fights later I was going for the world title.” The camaraderie of the sport also inspired her. “There was such camaraderie among fighters. If you need a glove or a wrap at the gym, someone would lend you one.”

As a woman, Burnside recognizes that she has been a forerunner in the sport, which had some downsides. “People were constantly trying to discourage me, telling me I was going to get hurt. It was so unaccepted. But by being one of the first ones, I could be a role model, especially for kids. I thought, ‘If I’m going to be in the limelight, I’m going to be a role model.’” She believes that it will only take it becoming an Olympic sport to break the door wide open for other women. “Once it goes to the Olympics, it will become commonplace.”

A traumatic attack from a would-be murderer is what pushed Burnside into boxing. Two weeks before the attack, she had noticed an ad in the paper for a women’s-only boxing class. She cut it out and carried it around for a couple weeks. After the attack, she called the contact, who turned out to be Irene Garcia, one of the top women boxers in the 1970’s. “I didn’t have enough money to join the gym, so I said to her, ‘Let me be your experiment. Let me do it.’ She did.” Burnside’s philosophical now about this frightening turning point in her life as well as other physically threatening experiences: “I think I was supposed to go through all this in order to teach people self-defense and how to take care of themselves.”

It’s hard sometimes to reconcile this gentle, giving person with The Tiger persona. But the two can coincide. For instance, in her sixth fight she broke someone’s nose for the first time. “I heard her nose crack. She didn’t even get up when I went to my corner. I ran over to see if she was OK. But her coach yelled, ‘Get out of here!’ I felt really bad. I didn’t want to break anyone’s nose or hurt anybody; I just wanted to win.”

“It’s so fun. I never thought I would love it so much. Boxing tries every sense. It tests your psyche, your defense, your offense, your wind, your strength, your ability to take punches… everything. All at once. And when it’s done, you’ve passed the test. It’s such a rush. There’s so much adrenaline.”

When asked what makes a good boxer she says, “Refusing to be the first one to quit. Both fighters at some point are thinking about quitting during the fight, but I wouldn’t. I would make up for my lack of skill with determination.”

She glows as she talks about the rush of the fight: “In practice, when I’d take off the head gear and they’d cut off the gloves, it felt like I had conquered the world. I miss that. There are not too many things that give you that feeling. When you’re done boxing, you’re empty. It takes everything, everything you have. And there’s nothing left. That’s what I liked about boxing.”