Ringside Report Looks Back at World Champion Christy Martin

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

I shall admit that this boxer was one about which I was blissfully unaware. Her contribution to the sweet science was, however, immense and once I began to read into the lady, my interest was more than piqued. This is someone who was clearly a trailblazer and a pretty damn fine boxer into the bargain.

Coupled with the obstacles she faced in the ring with people trying to knock her out she also had to contend with knockout blows in her personal life. They would have hampered and felled any lesser woman but “The Coal Miner’s Daughter” more than survived – she thrived, though at times it was very much touch and go.

Christy Martin 49-7-3, 31 KOs, competed at light =middle, middle and super middleweight in a 59-fight career that saw her hold the green and gold of the WBC world super middleweight belt in 2009. It was all part of an astonishing 23-year career spanning the end of the eighties until 2012.

In the UK when people talk of women’s boxing, we look back at the woman many rightly credit with being our trailblazer, Jane Couch. She was so important in taking the British Boxing Board of Control to court to get her right to fight that every other UK fighter owes her a debt of gratitude.

So, what do people owe Christy Martin?

Much the same I would suggest. Though she was to add to her tally of boxing wins a personal life that feels like it has Hollywood stamped all over it. Jane Couch never had that!

Christy was taken on in boxing by Jim Martin, who in 1991, became her husband. The ties that bind a fighter to their coach are certainly close, so I am sure that nobody became particularly surprised when the closeness became a love match. Oh how they all got that wrong – especially Christy herself.

Martin started her professional boxing career at 21 years of age, with an inauspicious draw against Angela Buchannan in 1989. A month later she knocked Buchanan out in the rematch. Her third contest – first round knockout of debutant Tammy Jones. Her fourth fight was a loss on points over 5 rounds. The downs, the ups, the curtain was set, and it was going to be an interesting performance as a record of four fights, a defeat, a draw and a loss against three women with a combined experience of six fights was hardly the beginning of champions. And yet it was.

She was a world champion, though BOXREC would suggest otherwise. Those in the know are well aware of her credentials but women’s boxing has always been a little behind the times when it came to recognition – it is hardly surprising that the Boxing Bible of Record will also be a little behind BUT I believe from my research that Martin got her hands on the WBC belt against Beverly Szymansky on October the 15th, 1993. Afterwards she defended her title no fewer than 7 times starting with a draw against Laura Serrano in Vegas, a rematch with Szymansky, a fourth contest with Buchanan and wins against Melinda Robinson and Sue Chase. Stretching from 1993 to 1996, this record was something which a man would proudly place at any table. According to Christy, in an interview with ESPN, 1994 was pivotal in her career and gaining recognition. She said, “The turning point was the match against Chris Kreuz in 1994 at a small Vegas venue. Don King was there with some of his really close people, and they saw how the crowd reacted to me.”

King signed her. From there came the defining contest.

On the 16th of March 1996, she went in against Deirdre Gogarty and in front of the cameras – a million pay per views – in the MGM Grand, Las Vegas, on the Mike Tyson/Frank Bruno undercard put on a quite sumptuous performance – it led to greater exposure, more celebrity status and attention on the women’s game like never before. With her nose a bloody mess after the third round, Christy refused to give up and stole the show as the Tyson/Bruno headliner was by comparison, a pale imitation of a fight. Oh, and she won.

In 1998, I believe, she was to lose her title when up against Sumya Anani in Fort Lauderdale on the 18th of December. By now fights had been extended from the 6 rounds previously to 10. The majority decision which had her losing on two and level on one judge’s card was tough, but she was far from finished.

A further winning spree settled her status. In what was quite a spectacle she took on, in 2003, a name in boxing. In fact, she took on THE name as she fought Laila Ali, daughter of the legend. Unfortunately, she was knocked out in the 4th round for the IBA world super middleweight title, leaving her with a few bruises but she still retained an enduring legacy.

It included fighting on undercards of legendary names like Tyson, Holyfield, Trinidad, Chavez and for a final time in a comeback in 2011, Chavez Jr. against Dakota Stone. She had already beaten Stone in 20099, winning the WBC super welterweight title and this rematch without a title on the line but at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, was a cracker. She came up short when she broke her right hand in no fewer than 9 places with less than a minute to go of the last round.

Her final fight was a 10 rounder she lost for the same WBC super welterweight title in Friant against Mia ST. John on the 14th of August 2012. In 2020, she was rightly inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and this teacher, volunteer with veterans and icon of the boxing world, showed that she could survive, and she could thrive and we should all take note, and be thankful of her contribution to the sweet science, despite all the obstacles.

And if the story was to end there it would have been quite perfect.

But it does not.

That man, the trainer, who became the husband, is currently doing 25 years for attempting to murder her on the 23rd of November 2010, at half past five in the afternoon.

She never saw it coming and was getting ready for a run when he came through a door and plunged a sharp knife into her torso. He repeated the action three more times, then went for her leg leaving a wound of eight inches of flesh hanging from her bone.

He then dropped the weapon, she got up to leave, they wrestled, and in an attempt to stop her he hit her head repeatedly off the floor. As he is pulled at her hair she felt a gun, her gun, in his short’s pocket. He tried to get the gun out, the clip falls out of it, he beats her with it before he managed to get a shot off. Into her chest. She lay still, after shouting at him then pleading for help.

Callously he pretends to call 911 for her on an unplugged phone, making sure she can see him mocking her. She falls silent and for half an hour is bleeding out with her breathing becoming increasingly shallow.

He got up, to shower and leave her for dead.

But she isn’t.

As soon as she heard the water she got up once more but this time she gets out. On the street she flags down a car and convinced the driver to save her. Jim, realized what had happened and ran out into the street to find her; by that time she was on her way to hospital in that car.

Christy Martin was a tough cookie.

Born of tough rural mining stock, her father was a coal miner as was her brother. Her grandfathers both had lung issues and her brother, Randy, suffered when employed in the mines so she came from a family who could endure hardship. The attempt on her life was just the beginning of the story for the world to hear about her hardships.

She met the man who would try to kill her when she was 22 years of age. He was 47.

He noticed her because she had been fighting in Toughmen contests – the types of brawling competitions which predated MMA. Jim, a trainer, met her and there was an immediate spark – he hated her and wanted her out the gym. In fact, Martin was so sure that female boxing was a joke he organized a Hit Squad to break a few of her bones and teacher her a lesson.

He abandoned that idea as she showed her ability and their relationship – trainer and fighter was cemented. Their marriage followed two years later: he wanted to, she felt it was necessary.
It was hardly the basis for a successful future together.

I suppose saying that Jim was not a supportive husband in the way he ought to have been is a bit like saying Donald J Trump was a bit of a stranger to the truth. Jealousy led his actions and he belittled his wife constantly, controlling and keeping her away from people: it was a typically abusive set up. He read her emails, monitored her phone calls, filmed her without her knowledge, shared pictures and videos of her with people and told her he would kill if she left him. In 20 years together they were apparently apart twice overnight. When it was time for Christy to end it and Christy was ready to do that after those 20 years, people who knew her said she looked serene and happy with the decision.

Evidently it was a feeling not shared with her husband.

It led to the attack and Christy finding herself for two hours being worked on by doctors trying to stabilize her condition. A traumatic event was followed by traumatic surgery to deal with the damage. Whilst she was fighting for her life, Jim was hiding. In a neighbor’s shed, a week after his frenzied attack, he was to be found.

Arrested, arraigned and then brought to justice he got 25 years. Christy testified for three hours. In an astonishingly brave appearance, perhaps her bravest ever, she laid bare her life, her faults and the intimate details of her life that he had already shared with friends and family.

After having completed the final humiliation at his hands, she walked towards the court exit. From somewhere, after all she had not seen him since the day, he had left her for dead, she turned and made her way towards him. The slouched bully was then confronted by an emboldened and free woman who spoke calmly and resolutely, telling him, “I hope you rot in hell you mother f—-er.”

Happiness for Christy has come in a marriage with a former opponent. In 2001 Christy beat Lisa Holewyne at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Vegas. It was Christy’s last fight for Don King and on the Hasim Rahman, Lennox Lewis rematch. According to her ESPN interview, she told them, “It was the best fight that I fought, strategy-wise. I had to be at my A-game to come away with the win.”

And now, instead of plotting each other’s demise, they are a team. Christy is now a promoter, Jim has suffered a stroke in prison and to all intents and purposes may well be in his own version of hell. Christy on the other hand may not be in heaven, but women’s boxing has benefitted massively from her efforts, her trials and her hardships: it is for that we are more than grateful that the Coalminer’s Daughter came from such hardy stock.

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