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Standing 5’8” and possessing a well-chiseled body and shoulders, it’s no
wonder some boxing pundits have mistaken 24-year-old Kina Malpartida for a
welterweight. But the Peruvian-born, Australian-based fighter is actually
just a physically imposing 130-135lb fighter, and at 5-0 (1) one of the most
promising female warriors on the Australasian scene. Unfortunately, not a
great deal is known about this woman outside of the antipodean region, so
WBAN recently set out to give everyone the 411 on this young excitement
machine!
Mike Altamura) On February 11 you defeated Mirelle Walford via a four-round
unanimous decision. Give me your assessment of the fight. How did you feel
coming off a 10-month layoff and in your first fight under trainer Jay
Turner?
Kina Malpartida) Okay, it was a very different feeling actually, to be
honest. Especially because this was the first time I felt I was in a real
professional environment. And it’s not only that I’m by myself, but I’ve got
J.T. (Jay Turner), and you as well Mike, and Brian [Kirwan], we’re all
together and I feel it’s a team and we’re working all together. The most
important thing is that we’ve all got the same goal, and that made me feel
different. It made me feel that I finally found what I really need to
achieve what I really want in life, you know. I’ve got a team united, and
we’re all working towards the same goal. Whereas before, it’s been
different. The trainer had a different goal, my promoter had a different
goal, and I had a different goal. But now it’s all the same. So that gives
me much more energy than I’ve had before; it just gives me that extra
strength and confidence.
Jay
Turner has really helped me heaps because he’s a scientific trainer. He
knows a lot of good stuff in boxing that I’ve never been taught before, so I
felt I was really learning the proper boxing technique while I was training
with him, so when I was in the fight it just felt so much better. Just the
whole thing gave me more confidence than before.
MA)
Unfortunately you broke your right hand with really the first punch of the
fight…
KM)
Yeah, the first good punch really.
MA)
Did you know you had damaged it right away?
KM)
Yeah, straight away. I felt like a lump in my hand, and just a lot of pain.
And it was different than the pain I’ve felt before, because I’ve stuffed up
my knuckle before, the first knuckle after the thumb. I’ve done that before,
but it’s always been that I could keep punching anyhow. But this one was
just like a pain that I felt that I shouldn’t be punching with it, but I did
keep on punching with it anyway.
MA)
Is it just the adrenaline in your body and pure warrior instinct that
carries you through injuries like that?
KM)
Yeah, that too, and as well that I had a lot of people there; I wanted to
give my best, and everyone wanted to see my best. I trained so hard for it,
and a fight has been in my mind since last April. I’ve been training hard
for a fight since then, so I’ve had it in my mind for a while. I didn’t want
that injury to be a barrier for giving my best. So I just thought, ‘Oh, I
just need to take it out of my mind.’ And I also believe that the power of
the mind is so strong that you can actually do anything. So that’s what I
thought when I felt it, I just thought, ‘I’m gonna put this away, block it,
and it’s just not there.’ And that’s why I kept on going.
MA)
What was the doctor’s diagnosis of the hand injury earlier today?
KM)
He said that I actually have a fracture beneath my knuckle, my third
knuckle. Counting from the thumb, my third knuckle. I’ve got a cracked
metacarpal, which is a little bone that comes beneath the actual knuckles.
It’s okay, it’ll take a while, but it’ll just make me stronger. I’ll get
keener you know.
MA)
You came to Australia when you were 19. What brought you to Australia from
Peru?
KM)
See, I had an opportunity. My mum was having a hard time in Peru, she had no
money to support me at all and I had just finished high school. She was
going through a crisis with her own health. Her mental health. And I didn’t
have a father. My uncle realized the problem we were having at home with my
mum, and he saw that I was having a hard time, and he offered me a ticket to
come overseas and study a career. My uncle is English, and he’d been here
(Australia) before, and he knew my life, how I lived, and he thought
Australia would be perfect for me and my brother too. So he thought, ‘I’m
gonna give her the opportunity to go overseas and study a career.’ He paid
for me to come over, he helped me out the first couple years, and I studied
a career at Uni.
MA)
What did you study at University?
KM)
I did Business and Restaurant Management.
MA)
Awesome.
KM)
(Laughs). So I did that and I did real good. I finished everything; I didn’t
fail any subjects. But it’s not my thing. I just always thought I wanted to
be a professional athlete. I always thought that. Every single sport I’ve
done in my life I’ve taken seriously, and I wanted to do it competitively.
But I just never had the actual support. You know, my father was good when
he was alive. He’d help me out when I used to play soccer and stuff, and he
helped me a bit when I started surfing, but then he died. And then there was
just my mum. It was always a bit confusing with my mum because, she’s a
lovely, lovely woman, and I respect her heaps and I thank her for everything
she has done for me, but she’s been a bit difficult with her mind. She’s had
a bit of ups and downs in her life, and it’s been very tough on her, so she
hasn’t been very stable emotionally. So it was difficult for me to live with
my mum actually, very hard because of that.
MA)
Did you get back into the surfing and the other sports when you came to
Australia?
KM)
Yeah. See, I’ve been surfing since I was 13. When my dad passed away I was
15. I did a few comps when my father was around and he always supported me,
and he used to give me some tips here and there. He was always very
supportive. But after that, when he died, my mum wasn’t really supportive at
all with my surfing and other sports. Like I used to play soccer and
surfing, but she didn’t support me much. Not because she was mean, but she
just had the wrong idea, you know. She just wanted to protect me from a lot
of things, and unfortunately she didn’t want to let me keep doing the sports
I was doing. It was all for my own benefit according to her, she didn’t mean
any bad, but it was no good for me because I really wanted to be an athlete.
So when I came to Australia, I thought, ‘Okay, I’ve finished my career,’ and
then I started boxing and I thought, ‘Man, I can do anything I want now.
It’s all up to me. There’s nothing to hold me back. I’ve got the
opportunity, I’m overseas, I’m in a first world country here, it’s all
different.’ So I started changing my dreams.
MA)
What motivated you to get into boxing?
KM)
I always liked contact sports. Like when I was younger, from 6-14, I did
karate. I loved karate, it was a big part of my life. But then I stopped. I
just started growing up and I changed my mind, but I still always loved it.
And then one day in Peru my friend took me to one of his boxing lessons, and
from then on, I loved it. The first time I tried it, I loved it. I thought,
‘This is for me, this is wonderful.’ Just the whole intensity of it, and all
that sweating, and just committing yourself to do the best you can is what
got me into it.
MA)
How much experience did you have as an amateur?
KM)
I just had the one amateur fight, and it only went for 10 seconds. They
disqualified me (laughs). I don’t know, I was a bit crazy (laughs). I just
wanted to get into it, and I started moving my hips and unfortunately an
elbow came out and I hit her with my elbow. I didn’t actually hit her, but
it was 11 O’clock, they still had like 10 more fights to go, so they
disqualified me.
MA)
Yep. And from there you started fighting professionally.
KM)
Yeah, I had that one fight, and then I started training heaps with my first
trainer, Tony Sims. And he trained me, and then, I don’t know, personal
things, little things, the way he treated me and stuff, and things started
to get messy, and I didn’t feel comfortable, so I thought, ‘I have to
leave.’ I had to go, and then I went to a girlfriend of mine, Angela Parr. I
trained with her a little bit, and then I went me to Mark [Batty]. They told
me, ‘We can’t train you here because Wayne Parr’s gotta go to Japan,’ so
they said to me, ‘We recommend you go to Mark.’ I trained with Mark a fair
bit, and it was great, we got along really well, but I wasn’t improving.
MA)
Just staying stagnant?
KM)
Yeah, I wasn’t improving, I wasn’t getting better, and then I had an injury
for like three months. I cracked my rib. I sparred a guy that was like 12
kilos bigger than me, Stephen Ng. He’s a very strong guy. He got me on the
ribs, and I couldn’t box for a while. When I got back into it, I was out of
whack. My punchers and everything were out of whack, and I realized he
couldn’t really exactly tell me how to do them properly. Just little things
like, ‘Your elbow like this,’ or ‘your shoulder like that.’ He could have
told me more things. J.T knows exactly what to tell me and how to do it. He
knows all his stuff, like footwork, all the stepping, shoulder movement.
There’s a lot to boxing and I didn’t actually realize until I met J.T. So
that makes a big difference, and I’m pretty sure he knows all about it. I’m
pretty sure because I’ve seen videos, gone through a few trainers, and I’ve
figured out he’s got a lot of talent as a trainer. He’s got his own personal
life, I won’t mention none of that because it’s none of my business, but
apart from anything he’s got a lot, a lot of talent.
MA)
So that’s how you’ve come full circle to now be training with Jay.
KM)
Yeah, I met him one day and he just showed me little things. I sparred some
boys at the Burleigh gym one day, and he started calling out punchers for me
to do because I had no one with me as Mark was on holidays. He started
calling the punchers, and I started doing them, and I went good in the spar.
And then he sort of got me to the side and said, ‘Stand up a bit more, use
your height.’ You know, ‘You’ve got long arms, you should be using more your
arms and your height.’ And he changed my positioning, because I was sitting
too much on my right leg; I was sitting too much on it and putting a lot of
pressure on it instead of standing up a bit more. He explained that, and
then he taught me a little about the jab, and then the next day, I went
right off. The first round, everything started to work better. Everything. I
remembered everything he told me, and I just thought, ‘This guy’s got a
little magic in him, I think.’ Sometimes you really want to get better in
your sport, and you find someone who can tell you how to do things better,
and you just can’t let it go. That’s what you want. You want to get better.
I didn’t know anything about him at all, but I just thought, “He’s got it.’
MA)
I understand.
KM)
So I said I gotta go with him. I told Mark, and he wasn’t selfish, he was
actually really cool about it. He said, ‘Look Kina, if you’re improving, go
for it.’
MA)
And then started all the troubles at the gym, right?
KM)
Yeah, everyone at the gym was jealous. Everyone was talking to me bad about
him, and everyone was talking about me bad to him. They just wanted to break
us apart, and in the end, they kicked me out [of the gym], and then they
kicked him out. They understood that they were not gonna split us apart, and
that’s all they wanted to do, no matter what. They used to bring dramas,
invent things out of the blue, just to try and break us apart. They saw that
I was improving, getting things done properly, and they didn’t like it.
MA)
Main thing is though that you’re with a trainer that you can bond with and
learn from…
KM)
Yeah, that’s it, and I’m very happy about it. I know J.T’s had a few
problems, but I hope he’s fine. I trust him. He’s a great guy, a great
person. He wants to help me all the time with everything, as a father would.
I really appreciate it.
MA)
What’s your usual pre-fight feeling? I know from obviously personally
dealing with you, before the Walford fight you were just pumped!
KM)
Yeah, my pre-fight feeling is, you know, I just get this feeling that I’ve
done everything I could to get where I am, and I just love the pre-fight
feeling with a passion. I just feel so out of reality, in my own little
world, and I’m just loving the adrenaline going through my body. It’s just
wonderful. I love it with passion, I tell ya. I feel that I’m going to do my
best, I’m doing to try my hardest to do what I’m there to do, which is to
win. I want to do everything I can to win, and that’s it. I’m gonna give it
my all. And it’s that feeling you have about that you don’t know what’s
gonna happen. That unknown feeling. In the end, you wanna win, you’re pretty
sure you can do what you want to do, but there’s always that unknown feeling
that gives you that adrenaline. I like it. I like that stuff.
MA)
Would you say your toughest fight to date was against Holly Ferneley?
KM)
Yeah, definitely, because she was putting a lot of pressure on me. She was
always coming forward. Even though I couldn’t put the punchers together like
I can now, I still felt good with my punchers. Holly is a tough girl, like I
seen her fight Sharon Anyos and she was pretty tough then. But she got more
skills when she fought me. She looked way better when she fought me compared
to when she fought Sharon because I saw the video. I saw that she had
improved heaps.
MA)
Tell me about Kina away from boxing. What are some of your interests, you
know, what do you like to do?
KM)
I love hanging out with my friends and going surfing. I love listening to
music, and also just chilling out, watching a movie or stuff like that.
Eating good food is one of the biggest things I love. I love my food. And I
love the beach. I love the beach, playing a game of soccer, or maybe a game
of basketball if I can. Just even doing a little extra sport outside of
boxing, you know. Just doing anything that is active. I am very social too.
I love people. People are one of my biggest things. I love hanging out,
talking, having a laugh here and there.
MA)
And you’ve been able to find a lot of fellow Peruvians in Australia as well,
eh?
KM)
Luckily yes. When I first came here, I didn’t know anyone. No one at all.
And then all of a sudden I found more people have been coming down, and all
us Peruvians have been getting together.
MA)
Can you fill us in on where you are with surfing at the moment?
KM)
I’m still surfing. I normally try to go out for a surf every day if I can,
and just combine it with boxing. I live across the road from the surf,
pretty much 50 meters, and it’s beautiful. Australia is the best part of the
world that I’ve ever been to because you can combine everything. The
lifestyle, you know, the sun, the surf, and the sport. If you wake up at
five in the morning, everyone is running everywhere. That’s something that
I’m very unused to seeing.
MA)
Are you going to look to compete in some surfing competitions in the
future?
KM)
Yeah, I wanted to go in the Aussie titles this year, but I’m not sure
because I think they’re going to be four weeks from now, and I’ll still be
with this injury. But I was going to go in it, and I’ve already paid to go
in it.
I’ve also been doing surf coaching lessons with Shane Horan, because I’m
trying to become a surf coach – to do it as a job. I’m almost there. I’ve
done the main one. I’ve only gotta do advanced recess and first aid, which
is something you can do on the weekend. Once I do that, I’ll be fully
qualified. But I’ve been doing a bit anyhow with Shane Horan, and it’s been
working good. And the good thing is that he’s a really good surfer. World
champion many times, I think three times world champion. He can train me as
well for the Aussie titles. That’s what I wanted to do, but unfortunately
now it can’t happen. But I’ll do it next year. I’ll keep drumming. Apart
from that, I’m gonna try and go in the comps after [my hand recovers]. I
just want to give it a go, just to muck around, you know, something extra to
do.
MA)
Would you consider traveling back to Peru to fight if an opportunity came
along?
KM)
Yeah, I’d love to. For sure. That would be da bomb.
MA)
What are your goals for boxing for 2005 and beyond?
KM)
For this year I want to really get as much fights as I can, and hopefully
maybe an Australian title. That would be the best if I can get it. That
would be for this year. Try to get as many fights and experience as I can.
In
the future, I want to try to climb up the ranks and hopefully get a shot at
the world title. That’s my main goal at the moment. Apart from that, I want
to really get good at it. I want to be really skilled. I know I’ve got a
long way to go, and so much to learn and experience. One day I want to get
up there and be as good as a guy, you know. All the boys, all the best boys
in my weight. I want to be like one of them. I want to look like one of
them. I want people to see me and think, ‘Where did this come from?’ I wish
I could get to that. That’s what I wish.
MA)
Do you have any final comments or anything you would like to add?
KM)
I’d just really like to thank Right Cross clothing (rightcross.com.au) for
sponsoring me and helping me out, Red Corner Promotions.
Brian thank you very much for helping me out, and I want to thank my trainer J.T. for everything that he does for me, which is pretty much everything.
And
to the youth I would like to say believe in yourself, because that is the
key to success. And also, be careful with drugs. Don’t use them because
they’re no good. |
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