Remembering Jane Couch – A Pioneer in Women’s Boxing!
By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart
Right now, boxing is rich with formidable women making waves in boxing gaining their rightful place in the ring and demolishing their opponents like successful boxers are supposed to do. If one thing that the amateur movement in general, and specifically, the Olympics, has given us it is a sense of what is right and should be done correctly in the professional game.
With women’s boxing now, a stand-alone feature in the 4 yearly cycle of Olympian endeavor we have got a load of sports people now coming out of one spotlight and rightly heading directly to another. It is fantastic to see but we should not forget that they arrive on the shoulders of many women who have kept the sport going without much by way of support and certainly less in terms of attention.
In the UK we have a force of nature, a Medusa of mind, a fantastic ambassador of women in the sport and a Helen of Trojan feats who won a world title five times. Her forthright style in the ring is now matched by her forthright style with a microphone in hands as Jane Couch, 28-11, 9 KO’s, has become an amazing media force which brings light to the boxing world through interviews, social media interventions and the types of commentary that causes debate and heightens tension rather than smooths waves. But who is she? Who was she? And why is she relevant now?
Couch was the very first woman in the United Kingdom to be licencsed to box professionally and toured the world fighting on undercards that were headlined by the likes of Lennox Lewis and Naseem Hamed. Sounds like stuff of dreams but Couch was under no illusion that her place on these cards felt more like courtesies than attractions.
Her wages for such fights did not include getting there or staying when they got to venues, like Los Angeles or wherever in the world they got on the bill. At one point she resorted to sleeping on a floor so she could get the fight done! It seemed to do her little by way of harm as she got up off a casino floor and defended her world title the following day.
Mind you the idea of sleeping rough was inconvenient in comparison with taking on an establishment that thought women had no place in a ring unless they were holding up the cards.
It was illegal in the UK when Couch began in the 90’s; that’s the 1990’s and not the 1890s!
It was not, however, illegal in the States and there were some creditable fighters out there who gave Couch, the Fleetwood Assassin, the idea she could do it too. Famously after seeing a documentary about these fighters she was emboldened enough to give it a go.
She started at the ripe old age of 26 and was at the start of a 14 year career that has led her to now become both a promoter and a social media personality.
She was able, in only her fifth professional fight, in 1996, to win a world title. She outpointed Sandra Geiger 1-2, 1 KO’s, in 10 rounds in Copenhagen, Denmark, to lift the women’s IBF belt. She then defended that belt in Louisiana in March 1997 against Adrea DeShong, 13-9-1, 7 KO’s.
Both big fights were out of the UK and showed her move from home in Fleetwood up the north west coast, down to train in Bristol to train on the south west coast before eventually crossing the pond to America as the USA were way ahead of us Brits at the time.
She was not finished with the UK though.
By the time she was in a fit state to take on that establishment she was already a two time world champion and in 1998 in a landmark ruling at an INDUSTRIAL tribunal, Couch managed to force the British Boxing Board of Control to grant her a licence and sanction all female contests.
Not for the first time it took the intervention of the law of the land to force a sporting body to realize it did not work in a vacuum and it needed to pay head to both modernity and the modern world.
Helped with legal council and a barrister – both women – the win sent hope and not shock waves down the boxing ladder.
Their defense was that PMS made women to unstable to box; it was 1998…
It meant she could now get back to boxing and managing to win world titles in her home. She managed that not once but twice in 1999! Suddenly we knew who she was, and we knew she was more preciously – one of ours!
Her career in the ring continued until her retirement in 2008 and she managed another 9 world title fights, winning 4 of them.
Couch’s greatest achievement came in two areas. Her winning world titles legitimizes her views and opinions as she has laced a glove and she knows what she is talking about. Always forthright and often difficult to agree with she has a style and an image which appeals to those of us looking for the straightforward. The thing she certainly is not is ignorable.
Her fight with the authorities means that there is a lucrative future where Katie Taylor, Claressa Shields and Nicola Adams can follow. They are headliners. They are boxers who will be top of the bill in their own shows but their debt of gratitude should never be underestimated when it comes to Couch and those with whom she gathered together in a fight for equal treatment.
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