No.1051 "I FIGHT MEN"           by Ajax

I was amazed at the sight that met my eyes as I walked into the Downtown Gym.  The Downtown was noted as pretty rum place, but I had never expected to quite see what I saw that morning.  For there, in the largest of the four rings the place contained, was the
woman I had come down to interview, Sonja Collins - sparring.  Well, it was a boxing gym, and where Sonja trained, so I should have expected that.  What I didn't expect was to see her stripped to nothing more than a pair of very brief, very feminine boxing shorts
and boots, and sparring flat out with a man.

I'd been around the sports mags a fair bit over the last few years, working for one and then another, but `Exertion' magazine was something different.  It concerned itself with unusual aspects of sport, and had more female sports coverage than any of the
others.  During the last two months I had interviewed female wrestlers and footballers, and even a team of rugby players, along with the more normal coverage of athletics and skiing, plus the esoteric disciplines of fencing and women's modern pentathlon.  Next
week I was booked to visit Cornwall to cover some woman's cyclocross, and had expected that to be a strange experience, but to find what I was seeing in downtown Birmingham was staggering.

And there was worse to come.  I sidled over towards Miss Collins and her sparring partner only to see that contrary to my expectations, the man was not using pillow gloves against the totally vulnerable ventrality of the woman, but vicious little bag
gloves.

Sonja Collins was slicked with sweat, and bright red from neck to navel where the man was plying punches at her with no regard for the sanctity of woman.  I could see that she was close to exhaustion, and winced as a vicious uppercut seemed to lift her right
breast almost to shoulder level.  My blood ran cold at the thought of such a thing happening to me.  There was no way that that punch could have been anything but shockingly painful, and her yelp of torment and twisted grimace found sympathy in my
own bosom.

I had thought that I had had a bad time getting established as a sports journalist after all women in that scene weren't exactly thick on the ground, but my struggles must have been minimal compared to what I had just witnessed Sonja Collins absorb.

What, I wondered, would make a woman put herself forward to suffer what shewas going through?

She didn't look out of the ordinary.  She was rather bigger than average, perhaps 5'7", 1.70m to our continental friends, and would have weighed in at around eleven and a half stone (161 lbs or 73kg).  A solidly built and stocky woman, a mulatto from her
colouring, skin the colour of milky coffee, eyes dark, features broad but very attractive, with the long, straight, dark hair often possessed by her type.

I must have been there about a minute when the beeping of a calculator, stood on a table near the ring, penetrated the concentration of both sparrers and the session came to an end.  Sonja turned and walked towards me, seeing me for the first time and
acknowledging me with a smile and a raise of the hand.

Seen square on she was a finely built girl, probably in her early twenties, and with a carriage that gave me a moment's stab of envy.  She was large, and the size of her breasts was in perfect proportion to the rest of her.  But their firmness and high line
struck me immediately, and their taut juddering as she came across the ring spoke of a fitness that was perhaps given only to a supreme athlete.  I did not normally register the details of other women's physique quite so quickly, but in that ring on that morning, there was little else that one could have thought.  So much of Sonja Collins was being flaunted
that one did notice.

She seized a towel that was casually tossed over the ropes, and standing above me, removed the sweat from her eyes and wiped her body down casually.  Then she draped the thing around her shoulders, ducked through the ropes, and jumped lightly
down beside me, smiling.  "You're the girl from `Exertion', are you?" she asked, and I nodded.

"Right.  Come on, then.  We'll talk while I clean up." She turned back to the ring briefly.  "Bob, get us all some coffee then join us." She turned back to me.  "Bob's my trainer," she explained.  "I daresay that you will want to speak to him too."

I followed as she made for a battered old door with a faded legend reading `Changing Room', at the back of the room, and we slipped through it into the typical odour of such places - a mixture of old sweat, feet, and bruise liniment, overlain by the distinctive smell of steam.  Clearly, the water in the showers here was very hot.

With some misgivings I helped her remove the gloves, noting that contrary to my expectations, it was she who had worn the large gloves, but even hers were only six- ouncers.  she noticed me looking at them and smiled again.  "Can't wear anything too
bulky - it would be too easy to block," she commented by way of explanation.  It didn't help my vision of what she was subjecting herself to.

Sonja Collins stripped off her shorts, socks and boots, and turned on the shower.  A quick screech as the initial icy jet of water from a needle showerhead struck her, and a jump back, made me smile.  It seemed that Sonja's reaction to changing room showers
was similar to my own when I had had to suffer the embarrassment of revealing my nakedness at school - an inhibition that I had never got over, but one which would hardly seem to have affected Sonja very much.  But then, the boxer could be prideful of her
nudity - I couldn't!

In a few seconds, she was swathed in steam, and soaping herself with the vigour that she seemed to display in all her movements, and I had to remove my glasses and reach into my bag for a tissue to wipe them.

"Nothing like a shower after a hard workout," she called over the noise of the water, clearly not expecting an answer.  I doubted that I could have given a satisfactory one.  Showers connected with sport were indelibly written on my memory as dreadful experiences.
 

Moments later, Bob strode in with the coffee, three old odd mugs on a battered tray, milk, sugar, and a large steaming jug of coffee.  For one, I was pleased to see it.  I had driven up from Oxford without a stop and had had considerable trouble finding my
way to the gym at the back end of Tyseley.  The streets around here were inextricably linked with the railway, and there had seemed to be a jumble of both.

"What did you think?" Bob asked me when I had swilled down half the coffee with obvious relish despite its questionable origin.

I was struck for an answer, but Sonja, stepping out of the shower, towelling herself again, saved me.  "She was shocked," she said with a twinkle in her eye, then looked at me quizzically, as if challenging me to deny it.  I couldn't, of course.

Then, she wrapped the towel around her waist, and plonked herself on the bench next to me, reaching out for her heavily-sugared coffee with even more relish than I had my unsweetened mugful.

To cover my embarrassment I quizzed her about fears of her weight.  I had seen Bob put at least three spoonfuls of sugar into her mug.

Predictably, she laughed.  "I have trouble keeping it up," she told me.  "You use up a lot of energy in this game."

Though Bob had thrown a blue vest over his bare torso, he still seemed under-clad to be sitting calmly drinking coffee in a changing room with a three-quarters naked woman.  As for me, I felt dreadfully overdressed, and had to wipe off my glasses again.
Since the shower had been used, the small room seemed to be becoming unpleasantly hot.

Halfway through the coffee, she paused.  "Well, what would you like to know?"

That built my confidence a little.  I managed to lean back, hoping that I looked less concerned.  "Do you mind if I record the conversation?" I asked.

Both she and Bob shook their heads.  I reached the recorder out of my bag and switched it on.  "Perhaps we could start by your telling me how you got into boxing to begin with.  We might be able to go on from there later."

"Okay," she said.  "It must have been six or seven years ago now.  I was in my last year at school.  We had a boxing club - boys only, of course - on the premises.  I always felt that I wanted to get into that ring and see what it felt like to box.  I'd had
fights in the yard now and again.  Nothing serious - fallings out, that sort of thing, but I'd always fancied getting the gloves on and having a real go.

"A couple of the lads were in the club, and then we had this Summer Fair thing. They put themselves up as Aunt Sallies to raise some money for the fund.  Took on all comers for a price.  Anybody who lasted three rounds got a prize.  I went for it." "And...and did you get a prize?" I interjected.

"Everybody thought it was only for a laugh, and he played around with me - till I got annoyed, and hit him, full on the button.  He went out like a light!  I've always been pretty strong - but that!  The thrill was terrific - and I mean tremendous!!  I stood and
watched them drag him away.  He was out for a couple of minutes, I reckon, and after that he's never come near me.  Lost face in front of his buddies, you see.  Knocked out by a girl!  And he still hasn't lived it down.

"After that, nothing was going to stop me from boxing.  I wanted to learn at school, but they were ABA affiliated, so I couldn't even run with the lads, let alone box.  It was a farce."

"So, what did you do?"

"I tried the gyms around Brum.  Mostly they wouldn't look at me.  Women and boxing didn't mix, they reckoned.  I had all sorts of negative comments.  `You couldn't take it' was the commonest, so I wondered if they were right.  I didn't think they were, but
I didn't know.  I'd never done anything where I `had to take it' - just the usual girls' sports, sissy stuff mainly, though hockey could be a bit bruising."

"So you found something harder?"

"In a way, yes.  I joined the local women's football team.  They looked a good bet.  They called themselves a `women's' club, and had no truck with being referred to as `ladies'.  As the captain used to say - `There's nothing ladylike about women's football.
Our girls really get stuck in!' They did, too, and I enjoyed that.  There was a bit of `having to take it' too.  It was just what I needed, getting knocked about every Sunday, and worn down with training Wednesday and Friday."

"Doesn't sound as though you had much time for social life.  Boyfriends, discos?"

"Not a lot, but I dated a few boys.  None of them could stick playing second fiddle to the sports I liked, so I dropped them.  One or two were different, but not many.  One of them even watched us play for time.

"Then there was a bit of luck.  Our trainer retired and moved away, so we were looking for someone else.  We came here, to Bob's, and he really worked us.  We'd thought the training was tough before.  The minute we started here, we started learning what tough training was.  And it helped.  We played better, always seeming outlast our opponents.

"It was at training one night that Bob gave me the idea I was looking for. `Endurance', he said.  `That's what women are built for.  You lot'll run any blokes into the ground in the end.' It was the first time I'd ever heard women spoken of as even remotely
equal to men physically, and I asked him if he thought a woman could be a boxer."

"And what did he say?"

"Why don't you ask him?" she countered, raising her coffee again.

Bob answered.  "I said what I believed.  Still believe, for that matter.  That yes, a woman could be a boxer.  In fact, women are ideally suited to boxing.  It's the sport where endurance counts for most."

I almost choked on the last of my coffee at that.  That anyone, especially a male  trainer, should make such an utterance, frankly astounded me.  It was the very last thing I expected to hear.  "But aren't...aren't women rather...rather vulnerable for boxing?" I
asked hesitantly.

Bob smiled.  "Yes, they are.  Very vulnerable." He paused before flooring me again.  "That really doesn't matter.  There are problems, of course.  Three areas to protect rather than two.  But by and large that should lead to more interesting fights."

"Interest fights?" I was incredulous.  I could hardly believe that anyone, let alone a trainer, could view the likely effects of boxing on a woman so cold bloodedly.  "But isn't the punching of certain areas very dangerous?"

"The breasts I assume you mean?" he said, making it a question.

I nodded.  The thought of being punched repeatedly in the chest was horrifying to me.  I had to allow, though, that I wasn't a trained boxer, and did not understand fully the significance of what I was thinking.

"It is," he stated baldly, then smiled again.  "But not for the reasons you have in mind.  No evidence of punching causing cancer or mastitis has yet been produced, and from my experience I do not expect it to be.  But you are right.  Breast punching is very
dangerous for a boxer.  Really heavy blows can be quite hideously painful.  Unless a woman is prepared for it, that can sap both the strength and the will to fight on.  It can also cloud the mind."

"But," I said, "I thought that women were required to wear chest protectors for boxing?"

At this, even Sonja laughed.  It didn't seem funny to me.

"Not in Europe," she told me.  "In America, yes.  But here we have always resisted the temptation."

"But why?" I didn't consider it so much a temptation as a necessary safeguard, and believed that all serious women boxers would feel it necessary.

"Because," said Sonja.  "when we fight stripped, we are fighting as women. Anything less just makes us turn ourselves into imitation men."

"How can you say on the one hand that women are ideally suited to boxing, and then make them seem like men?" put in Bob, directing it at me.

"I don't say that," I replied.  "You do."

Bob nodded.  "Yes, I do, and for the best possible reasons.  Boxing is an endurance sport requiring the most in the way of fitness and stamina.  There is no difference in the ability of both men and women to become supremely fit, but women have a naturally better ability to endure - to go on fighting through privations that would throw a man into the deepest exhaustion."

"But is it right to put anyone through such an experience?  Particularly women?" I wanted to know.

"I don't claim to know whether or not it's right," Bob answered.  "It's just a fact. Women can take more punishment than men can.  That they are not often required to is social, not physical."

"How do you feel about that?" I asked Sonja.

"Quite happy.  You can't get into a boxing ring without being hurt.  And once you're in there, you're on your own.  If you want to box, and I do, you just do what you have to.  It's what you can take that decides how well you do.  You take more than the
other fighter, and you'll win.  They take more than you and you lose.  It's that simple."

"How long are your fights?" I asked.

"Not very at the moment, but we're gradually taking on more."

"And you can?"

Sonja nodded.  "Yes, of course.  It's only a matter of training."

"How many women are there active in the sport?"

"Quite a number, though we could always do with more.  We have to fight in clubs and at private gatherings, though.  Stripped off, we can't fight in public."

"You regret that?" I was very surprised.

"Yes.  Women's boxing will never amount to anything until it is seen to be serious.  Topless public fighting would achieve that almost overnight.  Now, the media, you people, just think that topless bouts are a sexy spectacle.  They're not - as you'd know if you were in there fighting."

My stomach churned at the very thought, but there was a sincerity about these two that made me listen very eagerly to what they were saying.  If Sonja was right, we had been doing her and her like a gross disservice over the years.  No-one could possibly take
this form of fighting seriously, I had felt.  I was beginning to sense that I might be verywrong.  If I was, I knew that I ought to do something in my `Exertion' article to set the record straight.  The question that troubled me still was whether Sonja Collins was,
indeed, the serious fighter that she claimed.

"How many fights have you had?" I asked her, hoping that this would give me some sort of lead.

"Two or three dozen," she answered, "mostly against women, but I'm a bit heavy to fight more than half a dozen different girls."

"So you fight the same opponent several times?"

"Yes, over the course of a couple of years they start to come round again.  For instance, I've had four fights against Morag Strachan in the last four years.  It's two each at present."

"You said `mostly against women' just now.  Does that mean you fight men as well?" This prospect really staggered me.

"Yes.  I fight men.  Only at private do's, of course."

"Trained men?" I was astonished again.

"Usually, though now and again some chap fancies his chances.  These don't usually last very long."

"Which, the trained or the untrained?"

"Oh, the untrained.  They never realize just how much effort is involved.  My longest fight was against a man.  Don't quote me, but I went ten rounds against Tiger Taggart a few months back.  It wouldn't help Tiger if that got out."

I could see that it wouldn't, and would certainly not quote her.  "Who won?"

She beamed.  "They called it a draw, but everybody thought I'd won it."

"And you didn't have any ill-effects from it?"

"Yes.  Plenty.  I was so stiff and sore I could hardly move for a week." She paused, probably noting how goggle-eyed I'd gone.  "You see," she went on, "Tiger's about my weight.  Weight for weight men are about a third stronger than women.
They're not so tough, but they are stronger.  It felt as though he was hitting me with rocks."

"And were you wearing breast protection?"

"In a topless fight?  I wish someone could show me how!" she laughed, then paused before going on.  "No, I didn't, and he laced me.  He had no compunction about it - couldn't afford to, of course.  It was still hellish though."

"Laced you?" I was rather puzzled by the expression.

"Yes, laced me - walloped me good and proper - half beat my boobs off."

"My God!" I breathed, shocked.  "And you had to stand that?"

"Well, I suppose I could have retired, but fighters who retire too easy don't get many more fights.  Anyway, I had the measure of him, and meant to win.  I just couldn't nail him though.  It went the distance, and they called it a draw.  Most reckoned I'd won
it.  I certainly thought so."

It seemed strange to me that Tiger Taggart (who was something of a name in the ranks of the up and coming middle-weights) would even consider taking on a woman in the ring.  "Why did he agree to fight you?" I wanted to know.

"Well, his manager said that it would be a good easy workout to sharpen him for the next pro-fight without his getting too hurt."

"And did it turn out like that?"

"Probably.  Certainly he hurt me more than I hurt him, but I still reckon I landed most punches, and better ones.  It's the blokes who have the hang-ups, not us.  They always think they're being sold short when they're put in against a woman."

"Do you think that women could ever make a mark in world fighting - a really mixed world-championship list, I mean?"

"I doubt that.  It's the strength factor.  Skill's no different, but the fights would  have be to so long that the male authorities would never accept it.  That would always give the men the advantage.  Anyway, we'd like to see a women's world championship
system running alongside the men's."

"You mean a proper set-up - twelve or fifteen round title fights?"

Sonja laughed again.  "No.  Women would need to have longer fights than that.  Probably twenty rounds or so."

That sounded equally as horrific as mixed fights to me.  "Twenty rounds?" I was incredulous again.  "Surely, the move is to shorten fights, not lengthen them?"

"Men's fights - of course." Sonja spoke with conviction.  "There're brain problems there.  We just don't hit that hard."

It seemed to me that the conversation might go on for ever in this vein, so I suggested that Bob showed me the equipment used and the training methods they employed, hopefully giving Sonja time to dress.  Her uninhibited nudity was having a very strange effect on me.  I was almost feeling embarrassed for her.  I knew it was silly, but I'd be glad to get out of a changing room that was becoming very stuffy.

Bob took me out into the gym, and explained his methods as we leaned against the ring.  There proved to be a lot more to it than I had suspected, and his explanation was very interesting.  It seemed to me that I needed to know and see and lot more of this
boxing to be able to make a proper judgement upon it for my article.

As a woman, I was very fed up of sports-writers denigrating everything women did in fields that they saw as masculine, and was determined that Exertion Magazine should redress the balance.  They had a reputation for upholding women's sport that I
intended to further and hopefully enhance.  I was very impressed both by Sonja and Bob. They were, as I saw it, properly committed to the course they had elected to take.

"There's a lot to take in," I said to Bob.  "It's much more complex than I had imagined."

He smiled.  "A lot say that, but it isn't really.  The training is a bit specialized lots of endurance work, even acclimatization, but boxing training is quite tough anyway."

Bob seemed to me to be grossly understating the case.  This was a whole new world opening up before me.  "I should like to see Sonja fight," I declared.  "Is she due for a match soon?"

"She has Regina Brown in a fortnight," Bob said, "But I doubt that that will be very interesting.  It's only six rounds, and I have my doubts whether Regina is ready for her.  It could prove to be a massacre."

I shuddered at the thought before realizing that I was wrong.  If Miss Brown was as dedicated as Miss Collins, she would probably be looking forward to it - might even be seeing it as a challenge.  Perhaps it might be her first fight against a woman as tough as
Sonja.  I was falling into the trap of attributing my own thoughts to other people.

"Leave it with me," Bob suggested.  "She might be getting another mixed fight in a month or two.  I could get in touch with you again then."

The trouble with that was that I needed the copy for next month's mag and it was close to `going to bed'.  "I haven't got the time to wait for it," I confessed.  "But I should be able to make something of today's interview.  I might even persuade the editor to do a
series."

"Okay," said Bob, nodding.  "You've seen the set-up.  You know what the training is about.  We're serious here and we intend to see that women's fighting gets taken seriously.  Do us a constructive article and you'll be welcome any time."

We left it at that.  I drove home, sat in front of the word-processor - and went blank.  Suddenly, I didn't feel competent to write the article.  I decided to sleep on it, and the dreams I had that night had me up in the morning writing what turned out to be one of
the best sports article I'd done for some time.  Then I discovered that the only library pictures we had of women's boxing were of American pros - no good whatever for an article about a British girl outstripping their efforts hand over fist.

It posed a pretty problem for us.  I didn't dare to put a topless woman boxer in Exertion, so had to return to Tyseley a few days later with a photographer.  A series of shots of Sonja sparring with Bob were taken, making sure that she was T-shirted on this
occasion.  I also left a pre-publication copy of my article with them.  Having read it, they were both delighted by my effort, and invited me to attend the fight against Regina Brown (now only week away), and to bring some copies of Exertion with me.

I did, and spent a splendid evening at the ringside, learning all the time.

The six-rounder against Regina Brown was a good fight - not the massacre that Bob had feared, but an easy victory for Sonja on a fifth round knockout.  I took the opportunity of interviewing the loser after the fight, and found her as determined as she was battered to beat Sonja next time.

Battered she certainly was, and getting close to a fighter after a bout like that was an experience that I found almost as unnerving as sitting with the naked Sonja before. Regina was not naked, but she was topless, and I saw the bruises she carried on her body
- and on her breasts.  The pain from those was making her wince.  I felt sure they would have had me howling in agony.  I asked her about it.  "You have to carry it.  You can't fight without getting hurt."

But that hurt?  I wondered.  These women were a different race from me, I was sure.

I left her reeking of wintergreen and witchhazel - a smell I was coming to associate with this fighting scene, and oddly, one that I did not find the least bit unpleasant.

Regina had courage - they all seemed to, but I doubted that she would have the ability to stand up to a man in the ring like Sonja could.  Not yet.  Perhaps after the same degree of training there would be a chance.
 

END - Part 1
(Next month, the conclusion of I Fight Men by Ajax)
 
 
 

Stories in the Ajax Collection are available for purchase.
The list of available stories from 1000-1299 (with excerpts) can be found at:
www.geocities.com/ajax_stories/index.html