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5'6" featherweight "Dangerous" Deirdre
Gogarty was born on November 10, 1969 in Drogheda in County
Louth, Ireland. Although she became a world champion pro
boxer, she had one
of her biggest fights outside the ring ... with the Irish Boxing
Union, which would not sanction women's pro fights in her home
country. Ireland's loss was eventually Louisiana's gain, as
this policy forced Deirdre to fight her entire pro career in other
countries ... first in the U.K. and then in the U.S.A., where she
settled in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Deirdre's family background
didn't hint that she might be drawn into world championship boxing ...
her father is an oral surgeon, her mother is a dentist, she has a
sister who is a doctor, and a brother who directs an
orchestra. Nevertheless, Deirdre grew up watching Irish
featherweight champion Barry McGuigan, and found she was drawn to the
sweet science.
Deidre initially went to
England to fight as a professional boxer. She made her debut at the
Elephant and Castle Center in London on June 30, 1991, winning a
six-round decision over another debut fighter, Anne-Marie Griffin.
"It was very apparent
from the start that Deirdre was highly experienced and knew
exactly what she was doing. I was too unfit and inexperienced to fight
a girl like Deirdre in
those days," Jamie Johnson told WBAN much later, in March
2002.
Deirdre's next move took her
to the United States. She won first-round TKOs over two novices, Jane
McGhee in Fort Smith, Arkansas on May 13, 1993 and Joanne McGovern on
May 24, 1993.
Her next boxing stop was
Kansas City, Missouri where she fought Stacey Prestage to a draw over
six rounds on August 2, 1993. Prestage was 3-2-3 after this bout.
Dierdre knocked out debut
fighter Andrea Lowe in the fourth round of a bout in Springdale,
Arkansas on October 22, 1993, then faced Stacey Prestage again in
Kansas City on November 22, this time losing a ten-round decision for
the WIBF Super Featherweight title. Prestage fought the last rounds
with a battered face and a bleeding, broken nose.
On March 11, 1994 in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana Deirdre TKO'd debut fighter Carol Brown in the sixth
round.
On April 8, 1994 in Fort
Smith, Arkansas, she weighed in at 130 lbs and TKO'd debut fighter
Missy Buchanan (134 lbs) in the first round.
On July, 22 1994 in Las Vegas,
Nevada, she lost a four-round unanimous decision to
Mary Ann Almager,
a natural junior middleweight, in a junior welterweight (139-lb) bout.
Almager, who improved to 4-0 with the win, would go on to win the WIBF
Junior Middleweight title in her next pro bout!
On October 6, 1994 in Tampa,
Florida, Deirdre TKO'd Gail Grandchamp in the first round.
On February 14, 1995, Deirdre
TKO'd Isra Girgrah of
Atlanta, Georgia in the third round of a featherweight contest. This
was Girgrah's pro debut; she went on to win five world titles before
retiring in 2004.
In the all-women's
card staged by the WIBF at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino in
Las Vegas on April 20, 1995, Deirdre (124 lbs) was TKO'd by Laura Serrano (130 lbs) of
Mexico City after receiving a barrage of punches that rendered her
helpless at 1:12 in the seventh round. This fight for the
WIBF Super Featherweight title was a tough battle in which Gogarty's
jabs and patented left hook were pitted against
Serrano's devastating body attack. It was a war that went six and a
half rounds before Gogarty's manager threw in the towel. Gogarty was
game to continue, but her corner saw her starting to take tremendous
punishment when Serrano began to get the upper hand, and her manager
threw in the towel. Several of Serrano's blows to Gogarty's mid-section
had almost doubled Gogarty over. Serrano later said that "Deirdre
Gogarty was my toughest opponent, and the reason is because she is
strong. She has a nice technique, and is always in very good condition,
and she is a smart fighter."
On November 30, 1995 at the
Capitol Plaza Hotel in Jefferson City, Missouri, Deirdre (128 lbs)
TKO'd Jessica Breitfelder (5'2", 139 lbs) of Springfield at 0:46 in the
first round. Breitfelder, making her pro debut, would post a 1-9-0
record before retiring from the sport in 1996
Deirdre
got the boxing world's attention in a big way by losing a decision over
six fierce
rounds to Christy Martin
in the MGM Grand Garden
on March 16, 1996. The super lightweight fight, which was seen on
pay-per-view by over
30 million subscribers, was the one that brought women's boxing back
into the
media spotlight in 1996. In it, Deirdre again faced a much heavier
opponent (I'm told that
Christy outweighed Deirdre by 18 pounds on the scales, and probably by
more than
23+ pounds on fight night), and one who could out-punch her. Not
surprisingly,
Deirdre had problems with Christy Martin's fierce
body attack and pressure, but she rose to the occasion brilliantly and
was still on her feet at the end of a rousing action-packed battle,
despite a trip to the canvas in the second round.
One good punch from Gogarty
had bloodied Martin's nose in mid-fight, and Martin
fought the latter half of their battle covered in blood, but Gogarty
was
still unable to turn the bout her way. Martin advanced to 29-1-2 with
the win.
The mixture of ferocity and
boxing skills shown by both women made their
match the best of a night that was supposed to have been headlined by
Frank
Bruno's heavyweight title defense against Mike Tyson. Martin's bloody
nose
and bruised left eye caught the attention of the visual media and both
women's boxing
in the USA and Martin's own boxing career received a huge boost, thanks
to the well-placed fist of Deirdre Gogarty!
Richard Hoffer of Sports
Illustrated wrote: "Not only was the bout between ... Martin
and ...Gogarty ... more competitive than the typical prelim, but it had
more action and better boxing than the main event...and there was gore
to boot, all of it Martin's. After Gogarty rocked her in the second
round Martin bled wildly from the nose; it was a harmless injury, but
eye opening for the fans who were expecting Foxy Boxing."
Women's Sports and Fitness
magazine said the fight, ``ripped down the
cutesy veil that had relegated women to the foxy-boxing fringes of the
sport.''
Many female boxers who were
active in the late 1990's and early 2000's, including Laila Ali, have
said that they were originally inspired to try boxing after seeing the
Martin-Gogarty battle. In that sense, Deirdre delivered the bloody nose
that helped launch the boxing careers of dozens of other fighters. It's
ironic that after a performance that helped to re-establish women's
boxing as a serious sport, Deirdre had problems getting fights herself
... at least
with boxers at her own level of skill.
All of her next three fights
ended in first
round knockouts. On July 13, 1996 in Denver, Colorado she scored a
first round knockout in a rematch with Jessica Breitfelder. On
September 18, 1996 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, she TKO'd Shannise
Davis of Atlanta in the first round. On November 27 in Cleveland, Ohio
she TKO'd Sharon Yates in the first round and
on November 29, 1996 in St. Paul, Minnesota she knocked out Patricia
Simms of Ashtabula, Ohio in the first round. Simms fell to
0-2.
On January 11, 1997 she
substituted on short notice for an (allegedly)
slightly-injured Christy Martin for a bout at the Arena in Nashville,
Tennessee that
was carried live on Showtime TV. Thanks to a matchmaking travesty,
Deirdre scored an easy TKO against Debra Stroman of Blackville,
South Carolina, who clearly should never have been in the ring with
her. Gogarty tagged Stroman early
for a standing eight count then went for the kill. Stroman's corner
wisely threw
in the towel at 0:43 of the first in this scheduled six-rounder.
It's not clear whether Stroman
was Martin's originally-intended opponent or a
last-minute substitute after Martin pulled out.
Stroman was reported at the time to have a 6-3 record (but not to have
fought for two years) but there's no record that this was anything
other than her pro debut, and she took the fight on a
week's notice. For whatever reason, this fight produced a one-sided
fiasco on pay-per-view TV that did nothing to improve the public's view
of
women's boxing or to advance Deirdre's career. (It has also been
suggested to me that
Christy Martin was not really injured, and that Gogarty's sudden
appearance on this Don King card was merely a symptom of a contract
dispute between Martin and King.)
Deirdre's goal had become a
fight with Bonnie
Canino for the WIBF Featherweight title. This match finally
took
place in a "Carnival of Champions" card featuring three WIBF title
fights
at Keifer Lakefront Arena in New Orleans on March 2, 1997.
Canino had more total ring experience (29-3-1, 11 KOs) than Gogarty
(17-4-2,
16 KO's) but as a two-sport competitor ... kickboxer and boxer, where
she was 3-0. This was one of the few occasions when Deirdre
fought a well-trained and experienced opponent in her proper weight
class (all
four of her previous losses had come while fighting above her weight
class.)
Gogarty won the world title by
a 10-round decision after
a fight that was ugly to watch because Canino used a clinch-filled
grabby
style at times more reminiscent of Muay Thai than of pro boxing, in a
partly successful attempt to physically smother Deirdre's offense. At
one point Canino almost wrestled
Gogarty through the ropes! Bonnie Canino, herself a very
capable and stylish boxer when that's her fight plan, went on to win
the IFBA's Featherweight world title after losing this bout to
Deirdre.
On April 19, 1997 in
Shreveport, Louisiana, Deirdre TKO'd "Monique Strohman" in the first
round of a featherweight bout. (Some reports list this opponent as the
same Debra Stroman who Deirdre TKO'd in Nashville).
On January 10, 1998 in
Atlantic City, New Jersey, Deirdre (126 lbs) lost a ten-round unanimous
decision to Beverly Szymanski
(125 lbs) for the vacant WIBF Featherweight title. Deirdre
had suffered a torn rotator cuff while training for this bout and
aggravated the injury in the second round, so she was only able to land
with her left in the final eight rounds. Deirdre had come out firing at
first, using a good jab and good ring movement to keep Szymanski at
arm's length. After aggravating the injury, Deidre was unable to hold
off
the steady and determined Szymanski, who used a combination of hooks to
the body and straight jabs to the head to take over the fight in the
fourth round. All through the later rounds Szymanski kept control of
the fight with a steady pace and stream of combinations and jabs.
Neither was ever in any real danger.
After recovering from the
injury, Deirdre attempted a comeback but she decided to retire after
seven scheduled fights fall apart through cancellations, opponents’
withdrawals or promoters failing to deliver on their promises.
“I went to Florida three times for press
conferences and the fights never happened,” she told the
Lafayette Daily Advertiser in 2003. “I was sitting in a
dressing room in Atlanta one night, in full gear, when the promoter
came and told me my fight was canceled. When you train and prepare
yourself over and over and that happens, it’s hard. No matter what, you
have to do the training, and so many times you get nothing for the
effort.”
Deirdre
formally retired from boxing competition in November
2003. Her overall record was 18-5-2 (15 KO's).
She works full-time as the Art Director for AAA Signs,
Inc., one of the largest sign companies in the Southwestern U.S.A. She
also makes “shadow boxes” to commemorate the careers of great boxers.
In the evenings, she now trains young boxers at
Beau Williford's Ragin' Cajun gym in Lafayette, Louisiana, including
hot prospect Kasha Chamblin.
Deirdre
now puts the same work ethic into coaching young prospects as she did
throughout her own boxing career. She also became the
first female member of the Louisiana State Boxing Commission in June
2004.
“Her legacy is that
she is the best technical, scientific fighter in women’s boxing
history,” says her long-time coach Beau Williford. “She
gave it all that she had every second of every round she ever fought.”
"I
don't like violence at all, but I absolutely love boxing",
says
Gogarty, explaining "I guess I just don't think of it as
violent. There's not a victim. Both are on equal terms."
Gogarty was inducted into the 2015
International Women's Boxing Hall of Fame event in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
Page last updated:
Friday, 07 July 2023
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