Women's Boxing: Latest News in Women's Boxing

(MAY 26) Justice Potter Stewart, commenting from the bench, on a Supreme Court case (Jacobellis v Ohio), in 1964, concerning the threshold of obscenity, noted that while pornography might be difficult to define, ".... I know it when I see it." Most boxing fans can exhibit a Potter Stewart-like recognition of championship title fights, they know them when they see them. In the next month, on successive nights, June 12 and 13 in Connecticut and New Mexico, respectively, there will be several Women's boxing title fights, sanctioned by the IFBA, that most boxing fans, given the level of talent that will enter both rings, will have no trouble recognizing as championship bouts.

The following night, June 14, in Mexico City, the World Boxing Council is presenting a bout that the sanctioning body purports to be a title match, specifically for the vacant WBC International Female welterweight title. Let's ignore, for a moment, the red flag that is automatically raised any time a bout is announced as being for an "International" title of any sort (or for that matter, a "Junior" championship belt). The operative phrase for these boxing exhibitions is "caveat emptor," and, any potential ticket buyer for the Mexico City bout, expecting to witness a championship quality bout, should, indeed, beware. The fighters competing in Mexico City are Mia St. John and Amy Yuratovac.

It has been said, specifically by Bill Parcells, the football coach, that "you are what your record says you are." Taken at face value, this dictum would seem to indicate that the St.John/Yuratovac bout has a championship aura. Mia St. John comes into the bout with a 43-9-2 record, while Amy Yuratovac has won six of seven bouts; her lone defeat coming to Christy Martin. However, in the case of the June 14 bout, I yield to the words of a long-gone bookmaker, who held sway in a gin mill on Coney Island Avenue and who was quite facile with numbers and their implications. Gerry Connors never hesitated to to tell me, "It's not what the number is, it's what the number means."

During Mia St. John's professional career, her 43 wins have come against opponents who, cumulatively, had a winning percentage below 50%. For much of her early years in the ring, St. John simply overwhelmed overmatched fighters. To be fair, as her career progressed, St. John did step up in competition against fighters with considerably better records and considerably more skill. Those bouts, primarily, accounted for her nine losses, beginning with Christy Martin in December 2002. Amy Yuratovac fought Martin a year ago, losing a six round shutout, for the only loss on her record. It is her six wins that gives one pause. The first five came against fighters who did not have a victory on their records, two were debut boxers. After the Martin loss, Yuratovac came back with a first round TKO, in October, against Jasmine Davis, a 1-5 fighter. It was the fifth straight time Davis had failed to get past the first round. Two fighters, with a combined total of 49 wins would seem to be a qualitative "lock" for a reputable championship bout. That's not an easy case to make for the bout the WBC has designated for the International Female welterweight title on June 14 in Mexico City.

And that's where the blame for this farce of a championship bout lies, squarely on the WBC. It's not on the boxers; fighters fight. And any athlete who summons the courage to step into a professional boxing ring deserves recognition for that courage; boxing is the most brutal and dangerous of sports. Likewise, boxers have every right to maximize their financial return from the sport by taking every fight that is offered them. I'm fairly confident that the June 14 bout in Mexico City will provide Mia St. John and, I hope, Amy Yuratovac, with a relatively good payday.

But it is the WBC, one of the sanctioning organizations charged with providing oversight of the sport of Women's boxing, one of the sanctioning organizations specifically charged with the responsibility of conferring championship status on bouts, that is found wanting in this case. There is scant evidence that the WBC has provided the necessary oversight in regard to their International Female welterweight title. Rather, it might be argued, that by presenting such a bout as the one scheduled for June 14, the organization has, in effect, devalued their own championship title.

The St. John/Yuratovac bout does not, by any expansion of the definition, deserve the status of a title fight. There are, today, simply too many good female fighters who continue to hone their skill in this sport and who, based on that skill level, deserve a chance at a title belt far in advance of either Mia St. John or Amy Yuratovac. St. John's original opponent was Rita Figueroa, a 10-0 fighter from Chicago, who had compiled her record against, decidedly, middle-of-the-pack opposition (none of her ten wins were against fighters with winning records, although she did have a no-contest against another up and coming Midwest fighter, Mary McGee.) Figueroa dropped out of the St. John bout after sustaining an undisclosed injury. The St. John/Figueroa bout would have been a marginally better match-up, but that bout would have, likewise, been open for debate concerning it's championship fight qualification.

That the WBC, with it's long history and lofty reputation in the sport of boxing, cannot come up with a better bout for one of it's championship titles seems somewhat ludicrous. I hope this is not a result of the organization's inability or unwillingness to provide proper emphasis or attention to the sport of Women's boxing and the prestige of it's female title belts. The fighters and the fans, who support the sport, deserve better from this leading boxing organization.

Boxing fans do recognize championship bouts when they see them. They'll see them on June 12 in Uncasville, CT, when Alicia Ashley, Lisa Brown and Elena Reid step into the ring. The following night in Albuquerque, NM, they'll see them again with Holly Holm, Mary Jo Sanders, Jeannine Garside, Chevelle Hallback, Carina Moreno and Eileen Olszewski, among others. The IFBA has done an outstanding job lining up two cards with outstanding female boxing talent while providing all too rare television exposure for both programs. I hope these two boxing cards, on Fox Sports TV on the 12th and on PPV the following night, generate the type of audience that the talent in the ring deserves. I, likewise, hope that included in that audience are the WBC officials charged with future Women's boxing title fights.