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.
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