Although the event itself is now up for grabs following the death of Her Majesty The Queen, the motivation for tomorrow’s women’s card in London remains a worthy topic of conversation, writes Elliot Worsell.
LOOKING BACK, it was no coincidence that women’s boxing’s reported rise occurred at a time when money was tight, arenas were empty and fight cards were getting smaller, each one in need of title fights. Significant enough to draw attention, but still. cheap enough not to cripple anyone financially.
It happened, this rise, during a global pandemic, of course, and at the time it was sold as a progressive movement, with the boxing industry pretending to have finally come to its senses and given women the kind of opportunities they’ve always had, they said. , deserved. However, despite everything that sounded, it was not that. Rest assured, no favors were being bestowed on women, many of whom had spent years fighting in the shadows for peanuts, nor had there been any noticeable change in attitudes towards their plight, marketability, or global importance.
Instead, if they were talking about favors, it was women who were doing them, volunteering, as front-line workers, for an otherwise ambivalent industry for a sterile and worrying two-year period. After all, it was the women who matured past the past and accepted paychecks that their male counterparts would have laughed off the table for fights of similar prestige. It was also the women who resurrected many of the pedestrian cards they were booked on by going head-to-head and providing thrills and spills that their male counterparts often couldn’t match within empty, soulless arenas.
In the UK alone, we saw brilliant fights between Natasha Jonas and Terri Harper, Jonas and Katie Taylor, Taylor and Delfine Persoon (their rematch), as well as Ebanie Bridges and Shannon Courtenay. In most cases, no matter where they were placed on the bill, these girls stole the show. They impressed. They surprised. They seemed to be fighting like they had something to prove, which, come to think of it, maybe they did.
Cruelly perhaps, these girls felt they had to prove they belonged, both on a card still largely dominated by men and in a sport still considered a manly art. Maybe that’s what we saw every time they got together during that strange period of history and tried to outdo whoever preceded them or whoever followed them that night. Perhaps we saw women trying harder than men because, in the end, they still felt they had to.
Whatever it was, there was a remarkable intensity to the aforementioned fights that many, not all, fights between men seemed to lack during that same period. There was give and take. There was fire. There was drama produced not by their power and the ever-present chance of a knockout (something greatly reduced in the women’s game), but by how well matched they were and the ease with which momentum swings appeared.
No one in those fights rested on their laurels. Nobody got by on reputation alone. Nobody, moreover, reserved for another day.
Rather, women then, and to this day, fought with hunger and urgency. They didn’t know how long this hot streak would last, nor did they know if the sudden interest in women’s boxing was going to be little more than a passing phase. So they took what they could get, financially and in terms of opportunities, and then, to their credit, made the most of it. They turned cynics into believers and those, like me, who wouldn’t necessarily expect a women’s fight on a male-dominated card, found themselves watching a night of action and invariably walking away thinking the women’s fight on said card was the most compelling. of those witnessed.
That too has happened more than once this year, with the highlight of Saturday’s undercard in Liverpool again being a women’s fight, this time between Natasha Jonas and Patricia Berghult. What that one lacked in final knockout potential he more than made up for in work-rate, passion, and most importantly, competitive action. It was two-way, the action, always quality and always interesting, and the first round was nothing like the second, never mind the twelfth. It all seemed to mean something, both to the fighters and to those watching, which is more than can be said for some of the other fights on the Liverpool card that night.
Moving on to this weekend, fueled no doubt by Jonas’ show-stealing performance, Sky Sports plans to deliver its first all-female fight card, capped off by the grudge match between Claressa Shields and Savannah Marshall. It is a well-deserved moment, not only for all the work that the fighters did during the pandemic, but also for the work done long before, decades before, by the original pioneers and pioneers, the girls who had not even had social networks. media bills, much less the prospect of seven-figure paydays.
One of those women, Jane Couch, told me last week that she would be a keen observer when Shields and Marshall square off at London’s O2 Arena, but also said that she had turned down an invitation to attend the event as a guest. It was not a decision she made out of spite or bitterness, she emphasized, although the irony of suddenly feeling welcome in a place that was once rejected, at a time when all she wanted was to be welcomed, is not lost on her. . in her, neither. Nor is Couch naive enough to think that the recent interest in women’s boxing from many of the same people who were involved in the sport when she was denied the chance to be a professional boxer in the UK is something else. than financially motivated.
“It’s cheap (women’s boxing), and that’s it,” she said. “It’s also more exciting because you can do competitive fights cheaply. You get some dodgy fights from time to time, but even when I was fighting, you’d see girls fight who should never have fought.
“At the lower level, it’s back to the ’90s for girls just starting out. You need a big promoter or a big sponsor to make it work.”
Couch added: “Nowadays everything is governed by social media, isn’t it? However, unless you have that profile, nothing has really changed. People talk about women’s boxing and the advances it has had and say it is flying, but it is not. I know girls who struggle to sell tickets and have to pay for their opponent out of their own pocket. There is still a very, very long way to go.
“If the girls who now have a platform can help the girls who don’t, that’s the only way things will get better. I did my part, made it legal for them, but the interest in women’s boxing is only there now because of the money coming in. There is no more interest in it from the people in power than there was in the 1990s. I’m not saying everyone is like that, but most of the men from the British Boxing Board of Control, for example, were there when they dealt with my case. And it was cruel what they did to me.
Back then, Couch was not needed and therefore not wanted. They treated her cruelly because no one benefited from being treated differently.
For this current vintage, however, it’s markedly different. They, unlike Couch, are, to varying degrees, necessary. His “world” title fights, a cheap world title fight like the one you’ll find in 2022, are needed to prop up bills and provide the illusion that TV networks or apps are delivering a quality product. and world class. Meanwhile, their willingness to engage and fight as if they had something to prove, as if it were their first and last chance, is also needed to make up for the sometimes lackluster performances of men who have been overpaid, both respect like money. Through the years.
So in other words, don’t be fooled. Because what may look and sound like a favor, or an apology, or even a timely attempt to offer equality, is actually a desperate plea for help, which can also be monetized. “Please,” say the men in the boxing industry, suddenly warm and attentive, “give us a hand, will you? Clean up the mess we’ve made.”
Note: Following the death yesterday (September 8) of Her Majesty The Queen, there is now a good chance that the Shields vs. Marshall, scheduled for the O2 Arena this Saturday (September 10), is postponed. Both boxers are scheduled to weigh in behind closed doors today (September 9), after which Sky Sports and the show’s promoter, Boxxer, will await word from the relevant sports sector and government bodies as to whether all sports will be canceled on the day. UK this weekend. .
