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Jenifer’s
16th: Different Face, Same Foe
By BRIAN ACKLEY
WBAN Senior Editor
April 16, 2003
The marquee says Jenifer Alcorn will be fighting cover girl Mia St. John
Saturday night in Fresno. Of course, the record also shows that Alcorn’s
last two wins came over Jessica Rakoczy and Cheryl Nance.
But ask Alcorn, and she’ll let you in on a
little secret. She’s boxed 15 different opponents on her way to a perfect
record and two world championship belts, but she’s only prepared for just
one opponent.
“We always train for the worst and expect the best,” Alcorn told WBAN this
week. “When I train, I try to fight Lucia Rijker every fight. My memories
of Lucia Rijker, I can picture her in my mind, I feel she was at the top
of the game. I prepare for that. We always want to stop the fight as
quickly as possible (like Rijker). I’m not someone who likes to play with
an opponent, that’s cocky and arrogant. My job is to stop people, that’s
how I train.”
For Alcorn, every fight is a different face, but the same foe. So it will
be again Saturday, when she meet the decidedly less-talented-than-Rijker
Mia St. John, who silenced at least some critics with her 10 round
decision loss against Christy Martin, which was clearly less “sock” and
more “hop” than fight fans would have liked.
“It’s a high profile fight not because of the quality of the opponent, but
because of all the circumstances around it,” Alcorn noted. “I feel that in
the end, she’ll feel like she won the fight, like the Christy Martin
fight. So I would like to send her a message that she didn’t win.”
Alcorn’s crowning moment came in January, a wild, bloody and entertaining
Pier Sixer with another unbeaten, Jessica Rakoczy, earning her an IWBF
lightweight belt. She had previously claimed the WIBF’s hardware in a
quick disposal of Sue Mullett.
So there are those who would argue the matchup against St. John should be
tame by comparison.
“I feel because of certain comments that
she’s made about me, the record that I’ve attained, I believe she’s going
to fight very similar to her Christy Martin type of fight,” she offered.
“But, I’m prepared, too, for her to ‘cowboy up’ one time in her career and
show me what she’s made of. This is my job. I don’t take it lightly. I’m
not in it for the money. I’ll tell you who is -- Mia is. Mia doesn’t do
anything for ‘free-a.’ I’ve followed her throughout her career, Everyone
has been able to kind of watch her grow up on TV, the media darling that
she is. I’ve watched the changes that she’s made. They aren’t tremendous
changes, but they are changes. She boxes a little better now. I have to
stop her from running, I have to cut off the ring.”
The mother of three is trained and managed in part by husband Brad, a
homicide investigator for the Fresno police department, who will work as
her chief second Saturday. It’s easy to get the sense that Alcorn may not
want many more fights after this one, and has already started thinking
about a post-fight career that might involve becoming a referee, something
the sport would openly welcome.
Until then, Alcorn has already heard Mia say a hundred times she doesn’t
care if she wins or loses. Come Easter Sunday, in the world according to
St. John, she’ll still be Mia, and Alcorn will go back to being mother,
wife and comparatively anonymous.
“You know what? I have to tell you, I don’t want to be Mia,” Alcorn said.
“I don’t want to pose in Playboy. I want to be respected as an athlete, I
want to bring credibility to the sport as an athlete. I would like to
compare my career to a Mia Hamm or a Brandi Chastain. These are women who
are middle aged, have families, they have careers outside of soccer, and
they bring credibility to their sport.”
The face may be different. Expect the outcome to be the same. |
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