The First Lady of Boxing - Interview with Christy Martin Part 1
 By Benny Henderson Jr. (July 26, 2004) Part II
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Christy Martin
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What do we the boxing fans want out of a fighter in a boxing match? We want skills and knockout power. We've got to have blood and guts and to see the heart of a champion. The fighter has to be entertaining and captivate the fans. Hell, we want an all out war! You take all these ingredients and you've got yourself one hell of a fighter in one all-out brawl. You add Christy Martin in the mix and you've got the First Lady of Boxing. Christy still finds it hard to believe that from just entering a Tough Woman contest on a dare while she was in college that she would one day be the first woman boxer ever to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated and be the very one who would bring Women’s Boxing out of the stagnant state it was once in. From selling tickets for her very own fights on the street and having a janitors closet for a dressing room to signing a deal with Don King and becoming the most recognizable lady in the boxing world, it hasn’t been easy but worth the whole ride. Through bloody noses and all out wars in the ring 'The Coal Miner’s Daughter' has more than earned the right to be respected. All though Christy isn’t the very first lady to ever step in the ring, her style and commitment to the sport has opened up the door for such fighters Laila Ali, Mia St. John, Lucia Rijker and many more. Her show stopping performances against Dierdre Gogarty, Andrea De Shong and Christine Robinson had to be a high point to Christy Martin, but with the third loss of her career coming at the hands of Ali Laila last year has made Martin stop and revaluate herself in the sport. She has learned from that loss and will be back in the ring soon for all the fans to see. A rematch against Laila Ali is hopefully in Christy’s future, and she would also like to finally step in the ring with long time nemesis Lucia Rijker. So is the Lady Champ done yet? Not at all. She will not be hanging up the gloves and riding off into the sunset at this point. In a part one of a two part interview that Martin, 45-3-2 (30), did with the Doghouse, she talks about her career after the ring, her fondest memories, her toughest bouts, and her thoughts on Laila Ali and a rematch.
Benny Henderson Jr.: How did you get the name 'Coal Miner’s Daughter'?
Christy Martin: Well my dad really is a coal miner. And what happened was when we first signed with Don King everybody wants to put a nickname on a fighter. So my husband and Jimmy Lennon Jr. tried to come up with a nickname for me. So between the two of them they came up with 'Coal Miner’s Daughter'. It is funny how that nickname just caught on. I can be in an airport and somebody will say "there is the 'Coal Miner’s Daughter'", so it just stuck with me.
BH: Where do you see women’s professional boxing in about ten to twenty years from now?
CM: Is it to hard to predict because women’s boxing in my understanding is kind of gone in cycles. I guess back in the seventies there were a few women that really tried to get it out there and maybe it ESPN gave them some shots but it faded away as fast as it came. Then I got the big opportunity to fight under Tyson for Don King. But now I feel that it has really faded and continues to fade. So I don’t know it is hard to say if it is going to make it. Will there be somebody else cause I don’t personally think that Laila is the person. Will there be somebody that the public will hold on to? For whatever reason I feel that the public just kind of grasped on to me and enjoyed my fights. I don’t think Laila is getting that same love from the crowd, I mean she has her hardcore fans but I don’t think across the board she is getting the same I did. She is gets a lot of press because she is Ali, but I don’t feel she is getting the love of the fans like I had.
BH: Do you feel that Ali is getting recognition just because of her name?
CM: Well to begin with she defiantly got a lot of doors open just because of her dad. But I’m not like her, I’m going to give credit where credit is due. She did go to the gym she did good training and she has improved with every fight out I guess. I think she takes it seriously but sometimes there has to be more to the package then just improving in the ring to be a complete fighter. You have to be accessible to your fans, you have to realize that because they are buying tickets and PPV’s that’s why you are getting the opportunity’s that you get. So yes, I think she defiantly got some opportunities because of her name but she has tried to learn and improve and take advantage of the situations that she was presented with.
BH: I know that after your and her fight I saw her husband and crew push people away from her and wouldn’t let anybody around her for some reason.
CM: He pushed me away. I tried to tell her congratulations, here she is, she just stopped me and it was the first stoppage of my career, so it was hard it took a lot of pride for me to walk over there to tell her that. And her husband starts cussing me out, he was saying get your white ass back there in the corner. I mean he was dropping every name you can call a woman. I was like what is that, is that class?
BH: No it isn’t class and it is wrong I think.
CM: They have no class, and she could be so huge I feel like if she had the attitude and a personality that I’ve tried to display to my fans and stuff. She could be really huge.
BH: You are recognized by the fans and the sport in general as the first woman to bring women’s boxing to the limelight. How does that make you feel to accomplish that?
CM: When I started out I never really did it because hey I am a woman boxer, Jim and I just wanted to fit into boxing. We don’t want to make waves, we just want to go out there and put on a good show and entertain the crowd. We want people to walk away and say man that girl can really fight. Not she can fight for a woman, but because she can fight. And that’s the kind of attitude we took and I think and believe that is why the boxing public took on to me. They knew I wasn’t there to make a women’s lib statement or anything like that, I was just there to put on a good show.
BH: Where do you see yourself in ten years from now?
CM: Right now I have a light heavyweight that’s 10-0. His name is Rowland Bryant and I’m going to continue to work on his career. Jim has other fighters so I am going to still be in the sport even after I get so aggravated that I never want to go back to the gym or say that I want to walk away from boxing so bad. It’s like a drug, you can say it all you want but you’re going to keep coming back.
BH: So you will be managing fighters?
CM: We will be managing and maybe at some point we might even throw our hats in the ring as a promoter. But I want to get finished with my boxing career totally before I start trying to promote our own fights.
BH: It has been said by many that this is a man’s world it’s probably even more so in boxing. What where some of the prejudices you encountered as a woman trying to make it a name for yourself in the sport that has been dominated in its entire history by the men?
CM: Well defiantly it’s a man’s world. But I’m old school I’m from small town so to me it’s not all bad that it is a man’s world. But as far as the boxing goes early in my career promoters didn’t want to put me on they didn’t want to pay me so a lot of fights were for free. We sold tickets in towns that we didn’t even know anybody so we might sell three tickets for that fight. I would always get these crappy dressing rooms like janitor closets, there might be water standing in there and it was bad. I seemed I got the worst of the worst, but like I said I wanted to fit in and I wanted to fight. Once I got out there in front of the crowd though they always loved me, sometimes the promotion didn’t always look out for me. After we signed with Don King it got better as far as the arrangements. Better dressing rooms and things like that. But there were still a lot of managers out there and trainers complaining because King would put me on PPV and their male fighters that might have even been champion didn’t get the same exposure that I was getting.
BH: Well you are exciting as can be, I think. I remember the night you was on the under card of the Tyson-Bruno there was blood everywhere and all my buddies was like check this chick out man, you was just fighting your heart out. You know how men like to see a catfight, that wasn’t a catfight though. You were just beating the shit out of that girl and that is what the fans want to see a good show. I feel that you bring that to the table.
CM: There’s no doubt that the boxing fans want to see blood and knockouts, they want to see people giving it and taking it. Especially in 1996-1997 when I was fighting under Tyson I was loading up on every shot and trying to knock every fighter out with every punch that I through. So it was always getting bloody and then I fight through it, and I thank I gained a lot of respect for showing a lot of heart and it was entertaining for the fans and I think they appreciated that.
BH: Can you count how many times your nose was bloodied in a fight?
CM: [Laughs] You know the funny was actually the first time I ever really bleed was the card I fought under Tyson against Gogarty. I had many fights before that and that was the first time I bleed. So our joke around here is that was the most profitable bloody nose in boxing history. A few times like maybe three or four times and my nose has been broken a couple of times.
BH: Well as a woman was you ever worried about your looks and getting disfigured?
CM: Oh yeah I would think of all of that, but basically I would say with all this modern technology anything that happens now they can fix it. So I kind looked at it like that.
BH: If you had to do it all over again from your first punch to your last knowing what you know now, would you do it again?
CM: Yeah I would do it again I had a lot of fun. I am from a small town in West Virginia so for me to do the things that I have been able to do and meet the people that I have been able to meet is pretty remarkable. Maybe some of the fights that I went into with some nagging injuries or just plain sick that I should have not gone into so I could put on a better show. I wasn’t consistent as I was earlier in my career so maybe I could have pushed a little harder to be in the ring more. But for the most part it would be the same pattern as it was.
BH: Looking back in the beginning you said you went through a lot of crap with the dressing rooms and people and not getting the publicity that you maybe should have. Did you ever think to yourself why in the hell am I doing this?
CM: [Laughing] Oh yes, a lot of times after I met Jim and he started training me he believed that if ever a promoter would take a chance on me and put me on a big card so a lot of people could see me he thought that it would be a hit. He believed in it a lot more than I did, I thought it was crazy. He had my Dad convinced so my parents helped us out a lot financially in the beginning. I never imagined in my wildest dreams that it would be hit.
BH: What are your best memories of your career?
CM: There are a lot of cool things. I was the grand marshal in 1996 for the boxing hall of fame parade. I got to go meet so many legends like Archie Moore, he actually went to the gym with me and held a heavy bag for me. Of course the Sports Illustrated cover, those two things would probably rank number one and number two.
BH: It has been nearly a year since your loss to Ali, does the kneel down in that fight still haunt you?
CM: It kills me. Right after the fight Jim and I went on vacation and I stayed away from the gym a long time. I really didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I finally came to gym and set down with him and said look let’s do this, I want to get back in the gym. The only reason I want to get back in the ring is so I can get another shot at Laila. I feel like I have had so much heart and courage throughout my career and the biggest opportunity I let myself and the fans down. I was really hard for me to deal with. She did hurt me with the first right hand she hit me with and I never could really recover from it. It threw my balance off and I asked Jim if I was fighting sideways, because she hit me right below my ear I think. Two things happened in that fight, the first time I took a knee in the second round her whole corner jumps in the ring. If we would’ve been in Nevada, Florida and New York she would have been disqualified and I would have gotten another opportunity. Then in the fourth round when I took a knee I looked at Jim and he gave me the stay down, and I was looking at him like what do I do I’m in trouble here. I was down and she took a kick at me. And I’m thinking if I would have done that to her the media would have came down on me so hard and it was never a mention of it.
BH: If you get the rematch with Ali what will you do different?
CM: Number one I wouldn’t go into a fight with her after taking basically two years off. Even though I had the Mia St. John fight in that time I never really trained for that fight. I just hit the treadmill and run because the fight was on, it was off. I was never really excited about fighting Mia I guess I was a little arrogant about the fight. I thought I could go out there and touch her once so I really don’t have to train cause she will go down. Mia should a lot of heart and she stuck to her game plan. When, and I hope I get to fight Laila again I will want two or three fights consecutive before I fight her. I want to get my timing right and feel good again about being in wars and then fight Laila. The first time I really tried to stay small, I went in the ring about 147, if and when we fight again I want to put a few pounds of muscle on and actually gain some weight, maybe go in around 154 or something like that.
BH: How did Ali’s people treat you prior to your fight with her?
CM: Like Shit. They treated me like I was this girl she was going to fight next weekend. Somebody that nobody knows and having their first fight in the limelight. They gave me no respect. They wanted her to come out last and be announced last, every interview and press conference she had to have the last word and final say. It was all about Laila, and let me bring this to your attention and you may even already know this. She fought Suzette Taylor on PPV several months before we boxed, that PPV show did about 3,000 PPV buys. She just fought two weeks ago on PPV, what I am hearing is that it did less than 3,000 buys. When I fought Laila on PPV we were at 100,000 buys. I am not saying that I brought 100,000 I just think she needed somebody to help push that train. She didn’t do it all by her self.
BH: Why do you think they treated you like that?
CM: Honestly and I hope I don’t catch a lot of crap because of this, but I think it was a black and white issue. I really believed that is what it came down too.
Johnny McClain or Yahya or whatever his name is. He thinks because somebody is black that they are automatically a Laila Ali fan. Well I have news for him. I had a lot of black people just like she probably had a lot of white people come to her and say I hope you win the fight. A lot of people said look Christy I know I’m black but I want you to kick her ass because she has such a bad attitude. I had promoters and people in the business that I really don’t know all that well call me and say Christy please kick her ass we cannot stand her. And a lot of it was about her husband. He tried to make it a black and white thing, it was crazy and ridiculous. I am only prejudice against ignorance.
BH: What do you think the outcome would have been if you had fought Ali five years ago?
CM: Well the good thing about five years ago I would have been busy and I would have been fighting leading into the fight. I don’t think the fight would have taken the same affect and I would have been more prepared to deal with her. I would have dealt with hanging in there and getting over it. Maybe I didn’t have that confidence. As crazy as it sound I still think I can beat her. To me it is no different than Rahman catching Lennox Lewis. Lewis is a great fighter but he got caught that night. You know Oliver McCall also caught Lewis so it happens.
BH: Well McCall had his eyes closed when he hit Lewis.
CM: [Laughing] Yes, that's true, and the funny thing is I got a lot of the pictures from the Ali fight and she had her eyes closed. So I think man I must have been sitting there like a sitting duck.
BH: In closing for part one of the interview what would you like to say?
CM: I defiantly want the rematch with Laila Ali, I think it will happen because there is nobody out there that could give her the money fight that I can.
I would like to thank Christy Martin for taking out the time for Doghouse and the fans. Stay tuned for part two of the interview where Martin talks about Lucia Rijker, starting a family, advice to the ladies on boxing, and more. Plus her husband/trainer/manager Jim Martin will weigh in his thoughts on the conversation.
Continue: Part II |
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