(MAY 16) Her nickname, she
tells me, is "The Boss." And it fits. She communicates like many
I've known who've acquired that sobriquet: fast, straightforward
and to the point. And similar to others, much fewer in number,
who actually deserved the accolade, when Terri Moss speaks about
her sport, boxing, as she did early last week from her home in
Atlanta, it's a good idea to pay attention since she knows
whereof she speaks.
Her last professional boxing bout was four
years ago, concluding an eighteen bout career, covering ninety
rounds and resulting in an even-up 9-9 record.
"I got started late," Moss recalls, "I was thirty-five when I
began training seriously and I had just turned thirty-six when I
had my first bout in February 2002 (a four round decision loss
to Wendy Sprowl, who came to the bout with a 5-1 record).
Moss
lost her first three fights and then reeled off three straight
wins, the third, a four round decision over Stephanie Dobbs.
Four years later, Moss book-ended her career, in May 2007,
winning the WIBF minimum weight title over Dobbs with a ten
round split decision.
Moss' career spanned a six year period during which, in the US,
Women's boxing significantly declined as a sport prominently
featured on TV. "In 2002," Moss remembers, "female boxing was
still a unique sport and television provided consistent
coverage; not Christy Martin on a MIke Tyson card coverage, but
ESPN, Showtime and Fox Sports regularly featured female bouts.
Today, you'd waste time with your remote searching for a female
bout. And the irony of that is that even in the days when
Christy was on top of the world, the depth of female boxing
talent, then, was nowhere close to what exists today. Now, there
are many more women in the ring who have had outstanding
training, from the get-go, starting in boxing gyms, moving
through the amateurs, with the best talent turning pro. But, at
the same time, these talented fighters simply don't get to show
their skills to the boxing fans. Sure, a women's bout might get
placed in the middle of a local card now and then, just before
or just after intermission, but think about this: the
acknowledged best female fighter in the sport today has never
fought, on a major card, in the most visible boxing venue in the
country, Las Vegas, and that makes absolutely no sense,
whatsoever."
"Why is it that, in this country, where the vast majority of
talented female boxers are located, almost all of these fighters
are forced to go to Mexico, Japan or Europe for any type of
showcase bout. Did Christy ever fight overseas? Of course not,
she was in demand here, she was on the biggest boxing cards in
those days. Why hasn't Holly Holm been on a Pacquiao card? The
boxing community, specifically the promoters and the sanctioning
bodies simply have to rediscover or, at the very least, reassess
female boxing. And if they do and if they do it objectively, I
think a lot of high ranking boxing officials will be surprised
at what they find. Because the fact is, right now there is a
whole bunch of female boxing talent in a whole bunch of weight
classes going largely unnoticed within their own sport."
This, of course, is not news to those who follow the sport of
Women's boxing. And it's, likewise, difficult to avoid the
premise that the glory days of the sport may have passed. Moss
doesn't buy this conclusion. "No, the sport can be revived,
maybe not to the level of the Martin, Rijker days, but certainly
it can improve beyond it's current state. What it's going to
take is for the sport and that means everyone associated with
Women's boxing to get off their backsides and start marketing
the talented female boxers who are out there today. I had my day
in the ring and now I want to lead the fight for those women
athletes to, at least, get the chance to show what they can do
inside the ropes."
Following her "day," Moss has stayed close to the sport. She
currently runs, along with her former trainer, Xavier Biggs, the
Decatur Boxing Gym in northeast Atlanta where she trains only
women boxers. She also runs two "corporate boxing shows" a year,
featuring business people who stay in shape with a boxing
training regimen. "I always make sure that the bouts are split
between men and women," Moss states, "and they've been big hits
in the community. I'm currently in the process of doing some due
diligence on the possibility of franchising the shows."
In addition to toiling at the grass roots of the sport, Moss was
recently named Women's Boxing Chairman of the(CODA), a newly established sanctioning body
that seeks to fill the yawning gap in oversight that, currently,
looms over the sport of boxing. Will CODA succeed where the
others have not? The stated mission of the organization sounds
good, as missions always do. But the fact is that the sport of
boxing needs help, big time help, and it hasn't received much
from the sport's current overseers. Whether CODA makes a
difference will be judged by the results they achieve, not by
mission statements.
With Terri Moss, CODA seems to be off on the right track. She
knows the sport of Women's boxing and, more importantly, she
knows what's wrong with the sport and is more than willing to
articulate those wrongs along with what needs to be changed.
She'll talk fast, straightforward and to the point and,
hopefully, people at CODA and those in the sport of Women's
boxing will listen. After all, it's usually a good idea to give
The Boss a chance to be heard.
Bernie McCoy