Jackie Chavez of Albuquerque defends her IFBA Super Bantam title on Thursday, March 22 and she’s banking on a different ending from the last time she met Canada’s Lisa Brown in the ring. The 23 year-old Chavez (9-2, 3 KO’s) and the 36 year-old Brown (12-3-3, 4 KO’s) will fight for the second time on the Destiny card at Isleta Casino in Albuquerque. This is one of three women’s championship matches on the card, all scheduled for broadcast by The Best Damned Sports Show on the Fox Sports Network.

Lisa Brown is a 5’2 ˝” Southpaw. She fights out of Scarborough, Ontario and is trained by Mike Doesburg and by her husband, pro boxer Errol Brown. In her last encounter with Jackie Chavez, in September of 2005, Brown was fighting in Port of Spain, Trinidad, where she was born and raised until she moved to Canada at the age of 17. Brown won a unanimous ten round decision over Chavez, taking the vacant Women’s International Boxing Association Super Bantamweight title in the process.

It was the first loss for Chavez, and a rough one. She’s given it a lot of thought. “I really felt unfocused for the fight itself,” Says Chavez. “Any fight I’d ever been in I was really concentrated on the fighter in front of me, but this time I was focusing on everything else and I wasn’t being aggressive at all. I just recently watched the tape and I was shocked at my performance. I thought I had gotten beaten up really bad. In reality on the tape I didn’t get beat up so much as I was just standing there. I wasn’t really fighting back. She was hitting me at will. I was covering up but I was backing up and standing straight up. Things I know not to do but either I was being lazy or just…

“She (Brown) was very aggressive. She gave me the best body shot I’ve ever had from any girl. That was one thing that opened my eyes a little bit. She gave me one good body shot. She gave me quite a few of them, actually. She just stayed very aggressive. She’s a very nice girl, though. A great person. “

In a slump, Chavez followed that loss with another decision loss to Jeri Sitzes in January of ’06. Then she packed it in for a while. She had been working a full time job in addition to boxing and attending college. Chavez is studying landscaping and irrigation with a focus on water conservation. Her goal is a stint in the Peace Corps, and a job teaching crop and water conservation through the USDA Forest Service.

After 8 months off, Chavez’ trainer convinced her to come back to the gym and the sport in September. She quit her job in October.

“I really want to box,” says Chavez. “And If I want to do it I need to do it now because I’m only getting older. I can feel the difference now as far as getting in shape and all that stuff, compared to just a few years ago. I was in OK condition because I rock climb and I sky dive, so that keeps me in pretty good shape. Actually I do more pull-ups rock climbing than I do in the boxing gym. But when I came back to the gym it’s just a total different kind of workout. It’s more cardiovascular and more of your whole body versus climbing, which uses a lot of your legs and your back. In boxing you use everything, your core, your abs your back, calves, hams, thighs, biceps. Everything gets used.”

And how is Chavez going to prevent Lisa Brown from doing a number on her this time?

“I have my trainer with me this time. And I’m home. I’ve been training every day. I have Sundays off where I just go running. Just preparing and making myself more aggressive, throwing more punches. And that’s been a problem not only with Lisa Brown, that’s been a problem with all my competition. I’m not throwing, and I perform better in the gym than I do in the ring. They always tell me it’s a big mental thing and I need to get over it. I just need to get more aggressive. I used to be really aggressive when I was an amateur. When I first turned pro I was aggressive, I threw a lot of punches. I don’t know what the change-up was but now I’m just throwing a one-two punch when I need to throw a full combination and stay on the fighter. And keep it busy. And I haven’t been doing that so that’s something I’ve been working on.

Then there is the fact of Lisa Brown as a Southpaw.

“She’s a southpaw but she doesn’t dominantly sit on her left hand side,” recalls Chavez. ”She actually winds up when she throws her punches—because she puts all of her body into her punches— so she ends up getting a little bit squared off. And her lead right foot is always out front, but just a little bit. So moving away from her power punches is the big key that I think of. Either smother them or get out of the way of them.

As part of her preparation, Chavez spars with Southpaw Holly Holm, also of Albuquerque, who will be fighting Ann Saccurato in the main event of the Destiny show on March 22. Holm is a welterweight but the Southpaw sparring is valuable for Chavez. “Whenever you see Holly out in the world you just see her as a normal person,” says Chavez. ” But when you step into the ring with her it’s, ‘god she’s big.’ She helps me a lot.”

Chavez won the IFBA 122 lb title in November of 2004 and defended it in June of 2005. The sanctioning body considered vacating the title while Chavez was taking time out, but she appealed and was given an eight-month extension that allowed the Lisa Brown re-match to be made.

It’s a second chance for Chavez, and she’s taking it seriously.