"It's the fight of my life," said
Ann-Sophie Mathis yesterday. "My career begins with this fight. I
want to step out of the shadows." And step out of the shadows she
did last night in the Palais Omnisport de Paris-Bercy, destroying
her fellow countrywoman and arch-rival, the (previously) undefeated
world champion, Myriam Lamare, in the seventh round of a fight that
began with a stare-down "worthy", the commentator told us, "of Mike
Tyson and… "
Pause, as he casts around desperately for anyone else conceivably
capable of delivering the kind of basilisk stare to which
Mesdemoiselles Lamare and Mathis have just treated each other, and
fails, concluding limply with: "…Evander Holyfield".
And the fight was even better. A real thriller, with Mathis – the
more accurate puncher – generally in control and seeming on several
occasions to have Lamare hurt, only for Lamare to counter-attack
with a feral intensity, driving the gangling blonde backwards to
restore the balance.
Until the last time.
Mathis had hurt her earlier in the seventh and Lamare had recovered,
throwing her massive, looping left hook, (and missing), but you
could see she was unsteady now on her feet; and as she shoved Mathis
backwards to escape from the ropes, she was caught by a short right;
then another a few seconds later; then a third – beaten to the punch
as she threw the left for umpteenth time without connecting – and
suddenly there was nothing! Mathis drove a left, a right, and a left
through her guard; then a looping right round the outside that
caught her on the side of the jaw, followed by a left a split-second
later, and the rout was total: Lamare's dense, muscle-bound body
began to go backwards, slowly at first, but then with gathering
momentum, the way a car does when you have to bump-start it on a
cold morning, as the blonde drove her backwards into the corner with
a cruel, exultant, snarl. And just as the first commentator was
correcting "Elle est fatiguée!" ("She's tired!") to "Elle est KO
debout!". ("She's out on her feet!") "… MYRIAM EST KO DEBOUT!!", the
other cut in with "Il l'a arrêté!" (He's stopped it!). And indeed he
had. And Mathis was the new world champion.
"For me, this fight represents an opportunity," Mathis had told her
local paper, L'Est Républicain, yesterday. "I hope it will bring me
a better life. For the sake of my daughter, I hope to improve my
status and be better appreciated in society. Up until now, I've put
boxing first in my life and a victory would be a vindication. I've
staked a great deal on this. I didn't pursue my education. Boxing,
today, is the thing I do best."
Which is what Ria Ramnarine said a few weeks ago, come to think of
it, before her fight with Halmich; which made her defeat, and
subsequent retirement doubly poignant. But, as well as the obvious
one, Mathis's statement was true in a sense Ramnarine's wasn't.
"And that" (as Robert Frost would say) "has made all the
difference."
