(APR 6) Mary Jo Sanders was a champion body builder for several years and she took the world championship in the Tough Woman competition before she became a professional boxer. The experience has served her well. The 34 year-old Sanders has a record of 25-0, 8 KO’s, and has held the WBC Light Welter and Welterweight title, the WIBA Welterweight title, and the WIBA Light Middleweight title, vacating them all undefeated as she moved up in weight classes.

Her family includes her father, NFL great Charlie Sanders, the former Detroit Lions tight end. Now, as Mary Jo prepares to meet Holly Holm for the IFBA Light Middleweight title on a June 13 pay per view show, we spoke with her by phone from her home in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

----- I wanted to get a little background before we jump into the fight topic. Do I understand correctly that you are one of nine siblings?

MJS--Yes. Can you believe it? There are six girls and three boys and I’m the third oldest.

------Any other athletes in the group?

MJS—I think we all have been at one time or another. Track, football, wrestling, shot putt. We’ve all done something. It’s really neat.

------But you’re the one who has pursued it the longest and hardest?

MJS—Yes. Aside from my Dad, of course. He passed the torch on to me so I’m running with it.

------Are your siblings supportive of what you’re doing?

MJS--Yeah. They absolutely love it. To say supportive…that’s …I couldn’t even come up with a word. They’re just great.

---And how does your Mom feel about it?

MJS---She really loves it. She used to be a marathon runner. She was going to go to the Olympics. She qualified for the Olympics and then she had my brother Charlie. But yes, she really loves it and it’s very funny because we both do the same kind of nerve release thing…we clean. My sisters laugh at me because a couple of days before one of my fights they come up to the door and say, “We can smell the cleaning products! You need to calm down.” And I guess my Mom would do the same thing. My Dad says he would have to tell her to cut it out, come to bed. Just chill out. But I think you have this extra energy that you need to release—not all of it—but just some of it. I think it clears my mind and my surroundings. But now before my fights she still does the cleaning. She’s like, “Oh my gosh, my whole garage is clean.” So we kids laugh about that. But she feels the nervous energy too, and still does the cleaning at her house. They still kinda go through it. And my Dad, you would think he was going on the gridiron again. He’s really bad. He’s the worst of anyone. He really gets nervous and twitching and pacing. He’s really funny.

-----Do you think that’s because he’s had so much experience in a collision sport?

MJS—Exactly. He really feels it. He’s been in the contact sport so he can’t sit down too long. But afterwards he’s just beaming.

----You’ve been a lifelong athlete in a number of different fields.

MJS—Yes, we started when we were little in gymnastics and dance, and a little bit of ice skating—for like a second—and softball, basketball. We didn’t do soccer though. But track and field. We’ve done a lot. Especially at a younger age with the team sports. Although we learned at an early age, coming from such a big family, to compromise and work together, but it (team sports) teaches you that comradery and organizing skills.

----Yet you yourself went into the most demanding of the individual sports—body building and boxing. Talk about loner operations.

MJS—You know what’s funny? I talked to my body-building coach a while after I stopped training with her and was doing the boxing. She had come to some fights and she said, ‘Mary Jo, I wonder what it is with you and the individual sports?’ And I didn’t really put it together until she made me think about it. And I told her I would rather have it all on me than have to depend on anybody else. You have that good pressure that it’s all on you, and you have to do everything that you can do, work hard and train hard. And it’s nice when you get the victory and you get to pack that in.

-------What did you study in college?

MJS—Business and physical therapy.

------Were you working a day job when you started competing as a boxer? I guess that would first be in the Tough Women competitions.

MJS---Yes. I was doing construction. Pouring concrete. Curb and gutter construction. So, out in the field all day, and still training in the morning. I’d get up really early and get a few rounds in and then be on the job at 6 or 7 a.m. This was after college.

-----Were you training with a boxing coach for the Tough Women competitions?

MJS—No, I’d just gotten out of the body building. I’d had four competitions in three years. (*winning first place in all of them) And one of my friends was doing kick boxing and she was like, Wow, you really should try this. With the body building there’s a lot of running and you’re on the treadmill, and I don’t know if it’s my ADD brain, or what, but I needed something more stimulating. She said you should really try boxing, it’s a great work out and there’s so much to think about that you don’t have time to watch the clock—as I would on the treadmill. So I tried that.

And the owner of the gym was great. Before you even stepped into the ring you had to go through the workout to see if you were really ready. Before you get the privilege of stepping through the ropes, let’s see if you can even do the workout and be disciplined in that. So I did that for a few weeks. Then I had my first kick boxing fight and that ended after a round.

---And you won that.

MJS—Yeah, but I always really loved the punches more than the kicks. All right, you have to get so many kicks in a round, kick for your points. Get all your kicks out of the way and then you can box. I was more attracted to the boxing. After that the Tough Man/Tough Woman came to town. It’s not really boxing. You get all kinds. People going in on a bet, or working at the bar. Bouncers, bar fighters, people that just think they’re tough. That was three years in a row that I went to that, which was great because I had to stop kicking. I had to get used to that. Still, every once in a while, with a kickboxing background, you want to raise that knee, and you can get into trouble with that. Didn’t want to do that. So, I won that all three years, then went to the World Championship in Mississippi, in 2,000. That was really interesting. It was a lot of fun. It was total elimination. I fought four times that night and it was great.

-----It actually sounds quite dangerous.

MJS---Yeah, I’d rather fight a skilled fighter than people that don’t have any. In the Worlds people have a lot more skill. But you get the girls who are just big and maybe throw the big windmill punches. But the boxing skills definitely came in handy.

-------So how did the transition to actual boxing take place? And were you working with a boxing coach when you were doing the Tough Woman competitions?

MJS---No I was just working with the owner of the gym, but he was more of a kick boxer. But when I came back in town from winning the Tough Woman, he said—which I thought was great of him---I know more about kick boxing, I don’t have a lot of connections with boxing, if you want to take it to the next level, which you can, then you need to get with someone who knows about boxing. Which was great. Sometimes people see you have a little talent and they want to keep you. We still talk to this day and we work out at his gym, and he’s awesome. So a mutual friend was bragging to Jimmy (Mallo) about me and we met through him. I think Jimmy thought he was talking about a guy at first. When he said “she”, Jimmy was like, “I don’t know.”

-----Are you the first woman that Mr. Mallo has worked with?

MJS---Yes, and probably the last (laughing). He says sometimes I wish you were a guy so I could just grab you by the throat and yell at you and shake you around and then send you back in without you having a fit. But he’s great. The first time we met we sparred ten rounds and we’ve been together since then.

----Does Mr. Mallo work with other fighters?

MJS—He is just working with me exclusively. But they used to have a gym and they’ve been training fighters since ’71, I think. He and his Dad, together are awesome. His Dad has the Old School, and Jimmy incorporates that in with newer things, so I have the best of both worlds.

-------Who does your business? Makes your fights?

MJS---Jimmy does that too, trainer and manager.

------Obviously he’s done a good job for you

MJS---Unbelievable. He has people calling him all the time—Can you train me? People see what he’s done. And you know it’s harder for a woman to get out there. I think it’s easier for the guys to get bouts.

------Looking at your record, the first three years you had at least six bouts and one year you had seven bouts. That’s pretty remarkable for a woman to be able to be that active.

MJS---Yeah. That doesn’t happen often at all. He works over time.

---Now for the last two years you’ve only had three bouts each year. What’s happening there?

MJS—I think the opponents are coming up a little less frequently. Especially when you want to fight on TV, they won’t let you fight just anybody, you have to fight the top ten contenders or people with a similar record. If you’re 25 and 0 they don’t want to put on some mis-match. I think as you get up a little higher it comes a little fewer and farther between. If you want the competition. If you want to be on that level playing field. I could fight six times a year but it’s not really fair to my opponent or to myself. I want quality opponents. I’d rather just keep training and sparring and working in the gym and fight the best of the best.

-----The contract weight for this upcoming fight is 154. And looking at the record you’ve been moving gradually from Junior Welter up to –in ’06 you were fighting at 150 and last year at 160.

MJS----I’m going to give my manager a bill for all the clothes that I have to buy. (laughing)

---But this was a deliberate plan, was it not? To go up in weight?

MJS---Yes, it was, because we wanted to fight Laila Ali. Because she was the most recognized and our records were similar. And we were the only two females in the sport to have that many wins with no losses. But now she’s out of the picture. She’s pregnant. So now the best fight out there for me is Holly Holm. So that’s what we’re going to do. But yes, that was the plan. We really wanted that fight. When I fought in 2007 she commentated on one of my fights, and she said, yeah, I’ll fight her. But I don’t know what happened. But we’ve always said from the beginning that she’s not going to dictate our future. We have other things in the fire.

----How much of a process will it be for you to go down to 154?

MJS—Not a lot. I’m probably at 156, right now. But the weight is gonna change. I’ll lose some fat and gain some muscle. I’ll probably have to lose four or five pounds and then gain a couple pounds of muscle, so it will even out. I like to be under a little bit, because you have to weigh in at night and I like to eat what I’m supposed to eat and drink. I haven’t ever had to take anything out of my diet or starve or dehydrate before a fight. That’s just silly. I want to keep it consistent the whole way through with nothing shocking my body.

---You mean you actually want to be in good physical condition when you climb into the ring?

MJS---I know! Crazy, right?

---That is shocking.

---MJS---I like to be in a place where I can maintain and spar at that weight. It’s easier in the long run.

------Now Holly Holm is a Southpaw. You’ve fought Southpaws before.

MJS—Yes, six times. Some really good Southpaws. Tricia Turton, Terri Blair. And in my amateur career I fought a southpaw out of Canada, who was their national champion. I think I fought her in my second or third bout and she had about forty some fights. And I also sparred with her in Canada in preparation for the Tricia Turton fight. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but the things that should be hard, that affect other fighters, often don’t affect me. I mean like if they’re a Southpaw or they’re taller, something like that. I didn’t even know that Terri Blair was a Southpaw until the second time I fought her. Which is horrible to say. I don’t know if that’s a good thing to admit or not. But it really doesn’t bother me. But we get some really good Southpaws in and Jimmy will train with me and spar me Southpaw. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter. We’re definitely going to be training for a Southpaw.

------When will you start the most intensive part of your training for the June 13 match?

MJS---A couple days ago. No, we’re training throught the year. Obviously you get your breaks between fights. But I always do cardio or something for at least an hour a day when I’m off. Right now we’re getting into the gym and doing some things. A month out we’ll get a lot more intense and we’ll be incorporating some things for the altitude in Albuquerque, so that’s going to be interesting. It’s 5,000 feet above sea level, so we’re going to be doing a lot of swimming at a local park where there are long trails and staircases that go straight up. Jimmy’s not gonna let me get a lot of rest, you know when you’re gasping for air. He’s gonna push it so you push the lungs. Then a month out the routine will change, a lot of sparring, and then we’ll taper off.

----Holly Holm is 8 years younger than you. Do you think there’s any significance to that? Your records are fairly comparable in activity.

MJS---I don’t think so. I think with boxing and maybe some other sports, it depends on when you started. A lot of boxers start very young and could have fifty, a hundred amateur fights. Then they go to the pros and their body’s shot or their tired. And then I think what affects you as well is how much you get hit. Thank god, I’ve never been beat up It’s important. It’s not all offense. Defense counts too. So I think that matters—how much you’ve been beat up—more than how many years you’ve been doing it.

---What do you see as particular challenges for the June fight. What about the issue of being in Holm’s home town.

MJS—I think being a professional calls for certain things. One of them is preparation and a strong mind more than anything. That doesn’t come into play. Of course she’s going to have the crowd, but I’m going to have people there, too. If you’re mentally ready …I’ll be so in my zone I won’t even hear that. Just like the altitude isn’t going to matter because we’re going to prepare for that. When you go to that next level as a professional there are things that are expected of us. A little thing like a couple of boos, or cheering for her, that’s nothing. I can’t let it.

------Are you able to make a living as a boxer at this point of your career?

MJS—Yes. I’m probably one of the highest paid females. But still nothing to compare with a man who has the same kind of record I do. But a lot of us still have a day job. I do personal training. My clients are wonderful. A lot of them are coming out to Albuquerque for the fight.

-------Just one last thing. The BoxRec listing for you has a mention of a suspension that took place in Louisiana in 2005.

MJS—That wasn’t in Louisiana it was up North, here. That’s when I fought Belinda Laracuente.

----The listing says, “Indefinite suspension. See Louisiana State Boxing Commission.” Do you recall it at all?

---MJS---yes, it was a perforated ear drum. But it wasn’t in Louisiana at all. I came right back at it. My cut doctor is extremely over qualified. He’s a top rated surgeon in the country. He took a look at it, he said don’t blow your nose too hard, you’ll be back at it in two or three weeks. It was no problem.

---------It must have been painful.

MJS—You know what? It wasn’t that bad at all. It just kind of throws off your equilibrium a tiny bit. I’m sure there have been more severe cases but this was just a little bit sensitive and a kind of like a ringing. It was funny because somebody that I’d sparred with said Omigosh I’m so glad we had our headgear on because other wise you would have popped my ear. Because it had happened to her before. She explained it. And it was so wild that she’d been explaining it to me just a few weeks before it happened to me. It’s a good thing because other wise I might not have known what the heck was going on. So I’m glad she mentioned it. But it wasn’t bad, it was just a tiny percentage when he looked in my ear.

----I know BoxRec really tries to do the very best job they can,

MJS—Yeah, they do.

----But once in a while an error will creep in. I just wanted to check with you about that and I’m glad I did since it didn’t take place in Louisiana. Well Mary Jo, a pleasure to talk with you.

MJS—You’re welcome, and you take care.