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I am a 31 year old high school history
teacher from Toronto, Canada who has been a life long boxing fan. At
first I did not think women’s boxing would be entertaining but more
like what you would see in a really bad B movie. However, I learned
about how great women’s boxing can be one night during my years in
university. It was the year 2000, and my younger brother Ryan had
been training with “Mean” Margaret Sidoroff at her gym in my
hometown. Ryan excitedly told me that Margaret was fighting a woman
named Jolene Blackshear tonight on TSN, a Canadian sports channel
for a world title and he made me promise to watch. I of course
laughed and blew it off because I thought that it would be a joke
and waste of time but a promise is a promise so I sat and watched
it. Boy were my opened it was one of the greatest fights I had ever
seen; a 10 round war!
From that point on I believed that women’s boxing was legit and
should be showcased at the highest level on a global scale with fair
and equitable coverage as well as with dignity and respect. I took
it upon myself to try to open other men’s eyes about the potential
women have in the sport because I know there are a lot of doubters
out there like I was.
Since 2001, I have written many articles, interviews and have
covered live boxing events throughout Canada, Great Britain and the
Northeast United States, devoting most of my time making sure that
the female boxers get the fair recognition and equal media coverage
that they have earned and deserve.
My very first interview was with an amateur boxing champion named
Katie Dunn of Windsor. Ironically, Dunn was trained by Margaret
Sidoroff and her husband Josh Canty who also train Jeannine
“Heartless” Garside. I have gone on to interview some notable female
fighters such as Sandy “Lil Tyson” Tsagouris, who was the first
professional boxer I interviewed, Olivia “The Predator” Gerula,
Natalie “Too Bad” Brown, Olga Heron, Lisa “Bad News” Brown, Jelena
Mrdjenovich, Canadian amateur champions Mary Spencer and Mandy
Bujold as well as “Hotstuff” Hollie Dunaway, Ana “The Hurricane”
Julaton, Ava Knight, Rhonda Luna, Cindy “Checkmate” Serrano and
“Leathal” Lindsay Garbatt, just to name a few. Many of these
interviews took place before these women became world champions and
top ranked contenders.
Before attending a live event I would always ask the promoter if
they were going to put a women’s bout on the card and if they had
not then why they had not done so. However, this was never a problem
in Ontario, Canada because promoters like Jim Gentle, Don McDonald,
Tyler Buxton and Allan Tremblay always bend over backwards to make
sure they could get at least one women’s bout on the card no matter
what obstacles they faced.
It would be remiss if I did not mention the people who have helped
me out the most in boxing; simply put they are known as Team Wambolt
which consists of Durell Wambolt and his son Donald who himself was
a great amateur fighter. Durell and Donald have travelled with me
for thousands of miles to cover events, take photographs and video
tape shows. In addition I have worked along side Eugene Contella and
Marvin “The Weasel” Elkind.
A definite highlight for me was when I had the opportunity to be
ringside for I feel was the 2005 Fight of the Year between Cindy
“Checkmate” Serrano and Rhonda Luna at Turning Stone Casino in
Upstate New York State. The two fought a ten round war to a draw it
was totally awesome! Another highlight would be when I met Christy
Martin and the International Boxing Hall of Fame during induction
week of 2009.
Since 2009, Durell and I have started The Boxing Examiner.com (www.theboxingexaminer.com)
which is the #1 Canadian boxing website in the country. Even with
this added responsibility I still make sure that the women fighters
in both amateur and pro get just as much coverage as the men and
will continue to do so in the future.
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