Women’s fights were bursting out all over this past weekend. The bout that warranted the most attention, one could argue, was the match between Alycia Baumgardner and Delfine Persoon. That’s because it had the most world titles at stake; Baumgardner was recognized as the world super featherweight champion by all four major sanctioning bodies. But this fight got lost in the shuffle because two other female title fights were packaged on larger platforms. On Friday at Madison Square Garden, airing on ESPN, Mikaela Mayer captured the WBO welterweight title from Sandy Ryan. On Saturday in Sheffield, England, airing on Sky Sports in the UK and globally on DAZN, Terri Harper wrested the WBO lightweight title from Rhiannon Dixon.

Baumgardner vs. Persoon, the capstone of an all-female, nine-bout card, was staged before an invitation-only audience at a film and TV production studio situated near Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. The card, all nine bouts, was livestreamed on BrinX.TV, a fledging, sports-oriented streaming platform. We made it a point to check it out, less because we were smitten by the card than because we had heard of BrinX.TV and we didn’t quite understand it.

Baumgardner kept her hardware in a bout that ended inconclusively (more about that later). As for BrinX.TV which bills itself as the next generation of sports and entertainment (company motto: ‘The Kingdom of Awesomeness”), we still don’t quite understand it.

Here’s what we know: BrinX.TV is into niche sports. Examples include freestyle trampolining, downhill skateboarding, powerboat racing, and jai alai. “The more unique the sport, the more passionate its fans,” says BrinX.TV co-founder and spokesperson John Brenkus.

Where it gets weird is that viewers have a chance to compete for cash prizes while watching a competition. However, to have skin in the game, one apparently has to purchase something. There’s a shopping channel component in the BrinX.TV business model.

The chief sponsor of the all-female boxing card was Ninja Pirates Misfits which appears to be a clothing brand with no relation to the 2012 animated film, “The Pirates! Brand of Misfits.” It must be a brand-new brand because the only item offered for sale during the boxing card was a $45 tee shirt. We might be wrong, but we were left with the impression that the player that won the most money finagled his way to the top of the leaderboard by buying the most tee shirts.

One doesn’t merely make a fashion statement by purchasing a Ninja Pirates Misfits tee shirt. A portion of the receipts, we were told, would go to increasing the prize pool for the boxers while, in a wider context, “elevating women in sports.”

The card moved at a brisk pace through the first five fights. It slowed to a crawl when John Brenkhus addressed the audience from the center of the ring. “The energy here is amazing,” said Brinkhus to the largely subdued crowd of perhaps 200 people, some of whom were dressed in formal attire. Later in the show, he brought Laila Ali and then former NFL player Dez Bryant into the ring and gushed over them while they reciprocated by congratulating him for “making history.”

Brenkus intentionally created the impression that this was the first all-female card in the annals of boxing. It was no such thing.

Not quite two years ago, there was an all-female show at London’s O2 Arena, a Matchroom promotion topped by two compelling title fights, Claressa Shields vs Savannah Marshall and Mikaela Mayer vs Alycia Baumgardner, with former Olympians Lauren Price, Caroline Dubois, Karriss Artingstall and Ginny Fuchs showcased in four of the nine supporting bouts.

Moreover, a quick google search reveals that the O2 event wasn’t the first of its kind. On July 13, 1979, there was an all-female card at the LA Sports Center. A very good bantamweight, Graciela Casillas, made her pro debut on the undercard which also included a fight for Mirian “Lady Tyger” Trimiar who would be named to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2020 along with her cohort, the fraudulent Jackie Tonawanda.

Baumgardner vs. Persoon: The Fight

Alycia Baumgardner, 15-1 with 7 KOs heading in, was a unified champion. In her most recent bout, in July of last year, she avenged her lone defeat with a lopsided decision over Christina Linardatou.

Delfine Persoon, who brought a 49-3 (19) record, will be the first fighter from Belgium to go into the Hall of Fame, of that we are quite certain. Two of her three losses came at the hands of Irish superstar Katie Taylor and the first of those losses, underneath Joshua-Ruiz I at Madison Square Garden, was a barnburner that could have gone either way. There were scattered boos when Taylor was announced the winner by majority decision, notwithstanding the fact that the crowd was teeming with Brits.

But Persoon wasn’t the same fighter against Alycia Baumgardner that she had been back in the day when she touched gloves with Katie Taylor. She was now 39 years old (Baumgardner is 30) and entered the ring wearing a large brace over her right knee, an apparatus that compromised her mobility.

In the first round, Alycia knocked Persoon off-balance with a left-right combination. It was ruled a knockdown when both of Persoon’s gloves brushed the canvas.

In round four, with Baumgardner up by 4 points on all three cards through the three completed rounds, a clash of heads left the Belgian with a nasty gash above her right eye and referee Laurence Cole, on the advice of the ring doctor, stopped the fight. By rule, the bout had to go four full rounds to go to the scorecards. It fell 23 seconds short and was ruled a “no-contest.” Ergo, Baumgardner retained her titles.

Afterthoughts

Of the 18 ladies on the BrinX.TV card, eight were making their pro debut and several of these novices were already in their 30s. But, while they were new to boxing, they were not new to combat sports.

In the new world order, there’s a lot of crossover, especially at the club fight level. Boxrec, the sport’s indispensable record keeper, now carries BK (bare knuckle) and TCL (Team Combat League) results. Add MMA to the mix and there are now four pieces to the combat sports pie, five if one counts kickboxing as a separate entity. And while many women boxers in the past had a kickboxing background, nowadays there is more fluidity across multiple disciplines (a major headache for state boxing commissions).

Of the undercard fighters, we were most impressed by super bantamweight Isabel Vasquez, a 21-year-old Floridian, and junior welterweight Stephanie Simon, a 30-year-old former Marine and former U.S. national amateur champion. Both would appear to have bright futures at the professional level.

A final note: We would be remiss if we failed to note that BrinX.TV is free and that one doesn’t have to jump through hoops to summon it up. Hooray for that. And for the record, this reporter didn’t buy any Ninja Pirates Misfits tee shirts; we already had plenty in the closet (just kidding).

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A word of remembrance about James Earl Jones who died on September 9 at age 93.

Born in Mississippi during the height of segregation, raised by his grandmother after being abandoned by his parents, and plagued by a stutter so severe that he often refused to speak when he was young, Jones became one of the great actors of modern times. During a storied career on stage, in movies, and on television, he was honored with an Oscar, a Tony, and an Emmy. He was the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars and Mufasa in The Lion King and known the world over for his iconic intonation “This is CNN.”

“Audiences,” Robert McFadden wrote, “were mesmerized by the voice. It was Lear’s roaring crash into madness, Othello’s sweet balm for Desdemona, Oberon’s last rapture for Titania. He liked to portray kings and generals, garbage men and bricklayers.”

Jones was recognized in theatrical circles as an extraordinary talent for years. But boxing propelled him to mainstream stardom.

In 1968, The Great White Hope opened on Broadway with Jones (6-feet-2-inches tall, 200 pounds) in the role of Jack Jefferson – a character modeled on Jack Johnson. Jones didn’t like boxing. “I’m not and never have been a fan of boxing,” he told me years later. “I had an unfortunate experience at a fight I went to long ago in Spain. A Nigerian fighter was killed in front of my eyes.”

But Jones played the role of Jack Jefferson to perfection and, two years later, reprised the role in the film adaptation. I had the honor of interviewing him when I was researching Muhammad Ali: His Life and Times.

“I met Muhammad Ali for the first time backstage after a performance of The Great White Hope, “Jones reminisced. “Ali was still not allowed to fight, and meeting him was exciting, particularly given his response to the play he’d just seen. He said of Johnson, ‛That’s me. You take out the white woman, and that play is about me.’ Then he told me, ‘I want to go on stage and say those lines.’ He was referring to the scene where the Jack Johnson character is in exile in Europe. He’s been reduced to performances of Uncle Tom’s Cabin to earn a living, and the powers that be keep pursuing him, hoping to get him to agree to a title fight with a prearranged loss. Finally, they talk him into coming back to fight with the idea of turning the crown over to Jess Willard in Cuba. And the character says, ‘Come get me. Here I is!’

“We waited until the audience had left,” Jones continued. “Then Ali went out onto the stage and spoke to an empty theater. ‘Here I is! Here I is!’ He felt those lines expressed his life, and he spoke them with feeling.”

As for Ali’s own acting ability, Jones contemplated Muhammad’s extraordinary charisma and noted, “I wondered at the time, could he translate that into the craft of acting, which is using somebody else’s lines, which is the most difficult thing for any natural performer to do? I never saw him when he played in Buck White, because I was working somewhere else myself. I did see him on television much later in Freedom Road. And I played Malcolm X in two very short scenes in The Greatest, where Ali played himself but was essentially reading someone else’s lines. And what I found was, given his own words he was a great performer. But given somebody else’s words, there was a self-consciousness that he was unable to overcome. So he wasn’t a great craftsman in the art of acting, but that by no means takes away from his accomplishments. Ali represents America to me; power at its best, power well used, because real power is individual power. And each time we reconsider Ali, we realize there’s more to him and more value than we realized before.”

And there was a footnote to it all.

“Ali visited the set at Twentieth Century Fox when we were filming The Great White Hope,” Jones recalled. “We got in the ring together. We were both wearing boxing gloves. The photographers were busy flashing. Muhammad said, ‘Go ahead, hit me as hard as you can.’ Well, I’d played the Jack Johnson character since the play opened on Broadway. I‘d been put through my paces by real boxing trainers. So I gave Muhammad my best left hook. He blocked the blow. And in the process, quite accidentally, he broke my thumb. You know, when a fighter like Ali blocks a punch, the block is devastating in its own power. I felt the pain immediately.”

***

The main event at Madison Square Garden between Sandy Ryan and Mikaela Mayer didn’t start until Saturday morning at 12:45 AM. But it was worth the wait.

Ryan, age 31, came into the fight with a 7-1-1 (3 KOs) record. She won the WBO 147-pound title by decision over Maria Pier Houle last year, kept it on a draw against Jessica McCaskill, and stopped Terri Harper in four rounds this past March.

Mayer, age 34 (and now 20-2 with 5 KOs), once held the WBO 130-pound belt but lost a close decision in a title-unification bout against Alycia Baumgardner two years ago. She has since moved up to welterweight and was narrowly defeated by Natasha Jones in an IBF title fight in January of this year.

An element of bad blood was injected into the proceedings when trainer Kay Koroma (who had previously worked with Mayer) began working with Ryan, leaving Mayer in the hands of Kofi Jantuah. Then, as Team Ryan was leaving its hotel for Madison Square Garden on fight night, an attacker wearing a hoodie splashed Sandy with red paint and escaped in a waiting car with an accomplice.

Ryan was a slight betting favorite. The encounter shaped up as a competitive fight but turned out to be much more than that. It was an exceptionally good, non-stop action battle.

Ryan moved inexorably forward and Mayer couldn’t keep her off. But it wasn’t always effective aggression and Mikaela held her own on the inside. Each woman went effectively to the body which is a weapon often absent from the arsenal in women’s boxing. Both fighters were in good shape. Ryan was physically stronger.

It was a hard fight to score. According to CompuBox (which is an inexact science) Mayer landed 186 punches to Ryan’s 185. All three judges gave rounds eight and ten to Mayer. Those were the only rounds they scored alike.

I thought each woman clearly won three rounds with the other four up for grabs. The judges scored the bout 97-93, 96-94, 95-95 for a majority decision in Mayer’s favor.

A rematch is definitely in order.

***

Question: What do Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum (who oversaw the fights that stretched from 6:40 on Friday evening till 1:20 on Saturday morning), Mae West, Bobby Fischer, and Barbra Streisand have in common?

Answer: They all went to Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn.

Erasmus was founded in 1786 as a private institution and became part of the New York City public school system in 1896. Arum graduated in 1949 and is one of the school’s many famous alumni.

Erasmus graduates who made a mark in the National Football League include Hall of Fame quarterback Sid Luckman, owner Al Davis, and coach Sam Rutigliano. Jerry Reinsdorf (who owns the Chicago Bulls and Chicago White Sox) and baseball hall of fame pitcher Waite Hoyt went to Erasmus, as did NBA all-star forward and championship coach Billy Cunningham.

Bobby Fischer (arguably the greatest chess player of all time) attended Erasmus. So did former New Jersey governor James Florio and author Mickey Spillane.

Then we come to the world of entertainment. Oscar winner Susan Hayward and opera diva Beverly Sills (whose original name was Belle Miriam Silverman) are on the list of Erasmus attendees. So is Mae West (the quintessential sex symbol of the 1920s and 1930s who at one point was the highest-paid woman in the United States and starred in films opposite Cary Grant).

“I never met Mae West,” Arum says. “But I enjoyed watching her movies; that’s for sure.”

Record company executive Clive Davis (who graduated from Erasmus and counts Bruce Springsteen, Janis Joplin, and Billy Joel among his signees) is a lifelong friend of Arum’s.

“Neil Diamond, I know because he wrote Sweet Caroline,” Arum adds, referencing another Erasmus alumnus. “That’s boxing’s new anthem, and my granddaughter’s name is Caroline.”

And finally – drumroll, please – there’s Barbra Streisand (Erasmus, Class of 1959). “I’ve met her,” Arum recounts. “But she wasn’t very friendly.”

***

The New York State Athletic Commission took a step in the right direction on Saturday when Matt Delaglio was named executive director.

Delagio served as director of boxing during the rocky tenure of Kim Sumbler who resigned as executive director in May of this year. He was then designated as acting executive director, but there were fears in boxing circles that he would be passed over for the job on a permanent basis in favor of a less qualified political appointee. Those fears have now been laid to rest.

The next thing Governor Kathy Hochul needs to do is upgrade the NYSAC at the commissioner level.

In theory, the NYSAC is overseen by five commissioners. Two of these positions are currently vacant. Too often, NYSAC commissioner appointments are made as trade-offs for political favors. The result is that, because of uninformed leadership, the NYSAC has been known to embarrass itself.

Delagio is a hard worker and conscientious public servant who understands the sport and business of boxing. It would be nice if Governor Hochul appointed two new commissioners who understand the sport and business of boxing as well as he does and have the same commitment to public service that he has.

PICTURED: James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander, his co-star in the Broadway and film versions of “The Great White Hope.”

 Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – MY MOTHER and me – is a personal memoir available at Amazon.com. https://www.amazon.com/My-Mother-Me-Thomas-Hauser/dp/1955836191/ref=sr_1_1?crid=5C0TEN4M9ZAH&keywords=thomas+hauser&qid=1707662513&sprefix=thomas+hauser%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1

            In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, Hauser was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

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Terri Harper Wins Third Division World Title

Encounters in previous battles were key.

Terri Harper proved to Rhiannon Dixon that winning a WBO welterweight world title and keeping it are extremely difficult as she lifted it by unanimous decision to become a three-division champion on Saturday.

Harper (15-2-2, 6 KOs) showed Dixon (10-1, 1 KO) the subtleties and nuances at boxing’s elite level before an enthusiastic crowd at Sheffield, England. The former super featherweight and super welterweight titlist adds the lightweight title to her coffers.

Dixon discovered that experience counts.

Immediately Harper unraveled a planned defensive tactic to lure the frenetic moving Dixon into her counter right cross. It stopped the charges immediately.

Dixon, whose herky-jerky southpaw movements caused problems to other foes, could not rattle Harper who had faced numerous world champions in the past such as Cecilia Braekhus, Alycia Baumgardner and Sandy Ryan.

Patience was the key.

After some adjustments were made by Dixon, the lightweight match turned into a session of feints and clinches. Harper was able to manipulate the exchanges inside as Dixon tried to seek a solution.

In the latter rounds Dixon attacked the body with some heavy blows that seemed to open up more paths for her heavy blows. Right hooks did damage to Harper who was forced to hold.

“I got caught by a shot,” admitted Harper.

Once again Harper dipped into her vast trunk of experience and began blasting accurate shots with her rights and lefts. Though Dixon was not stunned, they snapped back the defending champions head violently.

Knowing she was behind, Dixon opened up her attack and so did Harper. Both exchanged heavy blows with neither relenting or surrendering. Each had bloody noses and each had energy in reserve for the last two frantic rounds.

After 10 rounds, all three judges saw it in favor of Harper 97-93 twice and 96-94.

“For me, its my best performance so far,” said Harper.

Promoter Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing predicts her win will lead to other pivotal matchups against the top lightweights in the world such as Katie Taylor, Amanda Serrano or Caroline Dubois.

“She made history tonight,” Hearn said.

Other Bouts

Super bantamweight standout Peter McGrail (10-1, 6 KOs) stopped Brad Foster (15-4-2) with a left hand body shot to the liver for a win by knockout at 1:08 of the second round.

Middleweight prospect George Liddell (9-0, 6 KOs) beat George Davey (9-2-1) to the punch with an overhand right that dropped the fellow British fighter in the fifth round. Though he beat the count a subsequent right by Liddell forced the referee to halt the match at 2:20 of the fifth round.

Olympic gold medalist Galal Yafai (8-0, 6 KOs) took a chance against Mexico’s Sergio Orozco (9-9) with a major fight against former world champion Sunny Edwards looming in November. He emerged unscathed, winning by knockout in the third round with a perfect four-punch combination knockdown. Though Orozco beat the count the referee stopped the fight at 1:49 of the third round.

Photo credit: Mark Robinson / Matchroom

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