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A really smart woman once told me that
everything difficult in life is, in the final analysis, really quite
simple to solve. It's not easy, she cautioned, but when you examine
it closely, the solution is, usually, quite simple. The sport of
Women's boxing probably fits, handily, into that category; the
attempts to bring success to the sport have been long and difficult,
but, in the final analysis, achieving that success is, really, quite
simple.
Two promoters, Joe DeGuardia and Cedric Kushner, proved the validity
that premise when they featured female boxers in separate New York
boxing venues, the Paradise Theater in the Bronx and the Roseland
Ballroom in Manhattan, in the past month. It wasn't, by any means,
the first time female fighters had competed in New York. Quality
women fighters have appeared at the top tier venues in the city,
including Madison Square Garden, for a number of years. But top tier
venues don't necessarily guarantee top tier bouts and quality female
fighters only ensure good boxing when two of them are in the ring at
the same time.
And therein lies the simplicity of these two New York promoters'
genius. They contracted quality female boxers for their cards and
had those quality fighters climb into the ring with each other, not
with overmatched opponents, but with each other. Genius? Maybe a tad
facetious, but only by a bit. Because, when all is said and done,
currently, in the sport of Women's boxing, competitive bouts with
two good fighters continue to be almost as rare as the ability to
watch the sport on HBO.
DeGuardia, on the last day of January, featured Alicia Ashley
winning the vacant NABF super bantamweight title, with an eight
round decision over Brooke Dierdorff. Ashley, a nine year veteran of
the professional ring, has a career opponent list that resembles a
"Who's Who" of the sport and Dierdorff is a boxer who truly deserves
the label, "action fighter;" she seems to have only one gear,
forward. Not surprisingly, the bout was the night's highlight. And,
as a bit of lagniappe, (look it up, or ask someone from New Orleans)
DeGuardia began his night's card with the highly anticipated
professional debut of Ronica Jeffrey, an NY Golden Gloves champion,
against Karen Dulin, a fighter from nearby Connecticut, who, judging
by her own debut performance against Jeffrey, will be heard from in
the future.
Last week, on the next to last day of February, Cedric Kushner
featured Elena Reid, another veteran fighter of great distinction
over her eight years in the ring, defending her WIBA flyweight title
against the up and coming New York fighter Eileen Olszewski. Reid
had, previously, fought Regina Halmich to a standstill in two bouts
in Germany, deserving a decision in, at least, one of those bouts.
Olszewski, with 30 professional rounds to her credit going into the
bout (to Reid's 143), was what bookmakers often call a "live"
underdog. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be a wonderful ten
rounds of boxing, with Olszewski starting fast, Reid coming hard in
the middle rounds and Olszewski, "closing the show" (Roseland is
steps from Broadway) with a dominating final three rounds. If this
wasn't the "fight of the night," it at least made the group photo.
Two very good nights for the sport of Women's boxing, in the biggest
market in the country and the fact is it was a result of a very
simple formula: get good fighters and match them up. DeGuardia and
Kushner, as promoters, are the "out front guys" and should get top
billing when things go right because they're first in line for blame
when things go wrong. But, it's not only the promoters who
contributed to this success for the sport of Women's boxing. It's
also the NABF and the WIBA sanctioning bodies; it's the management
teams of the fighters who said "yes' to tough fights; and, of
course, it is the fighters themselves, Dierdorff and Reid for
traveling to New York for tough bouts against hometown fighters and
Ashley and Olszewski, for, among other things, honing their skill
and talent to the point of winning against fighters as talented as
Reid and Dierdorff. It's simple, but, of course, as that smart woman
told me, it's not easy.
It's not easy because far too many, at every level in the sport,
continue to opt for the "low hanging fruit" of "walkover" opponents,
or refuse to travel from the comfortable cocoons of their hometowns
to take fights, or set impossible financial conditions for accepting
bouts. But then, once in a while, you see fight cards like the ones
at the Paradise Theater and the Roseland Ballroom and it's
impossible to wonder: Why? Why can't there be more female bouts like
Ashley/Dierdorff or Reid/Olszewski? It seems so simple: get good
promoters whose knowledge of the sport goes beyond Laila Ali; get
sanctioning bodies who respect the value of their titles; get boxing
management who understand the worth of quality wins and the
worthlessness of bouts that come nowhere near being competitive; and
get fighters who truly understand the reason they're climbing up
those ring steps: to test themselves and their considerable skills
against the best competition available. The sport had that for two
nights in New York. It was simple, it wasn't easy, but it was
simple.
Bernie McCoy
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