12.04.04 – By Bernie McCoy – One of the great things about sports is that’s its a part of life where “you can do something about yesterday, tomorrow”. This is especially true of boxing, the most redemptive of sports; boxing can change from bout to bout, round to round, punch to punch….a fighter is deemed to always have a “puncher’s chance”. The fact is, in boxing, you just have to keep punching.
Lisa Holewyne is as good example as one needs for proof positive that in boxing, if you keep coming forward, if you keep punching, you eventually get a chance on a big stage. On April 24, in Los Angeles, Lisa Holewyne steps into the ring with unbeaten Lucia Rijker in a six round preliminary to the Vitali Klitschko/Corrie Sanders bout to be broadcast on HBO. It had been initially reported that Layla McCarter would be Rijker’s opponent and given the fact that last October McCarter outpointed Holewyne over ten rounds, many “experts” in the boxing community have speculated that Rijker was opting for an easier fight. It wouldn’t be the first time the “experts” in the boxing community got it wrong.
When I spoke with Holewyne, recently, she said, “Let me let you in on something, I’m gonna win. Lucia’s a great fighter, but she’s had three fights in nearly five years, I’ve had 25. In addition, if I didn’t think I was going to win, there’d been no sense in going out there. That’s the only reason you climb into the ring, to win.” Not only does Holewyne have many more rounds in the books than Rijker over the past several years, but those rounds have been with some of the best fighters in the sport of Women’s boxing: Christy Martin, Sumya Anani, Marischa Sjauw, Eliza Olson, McCarter, Sunshine Fettkether and Britt VanBuskirk, the only woman to beat Anani. Holewyne’s overall career record is 20-12-1 and given the high quality of the opposition, its a record she can be, and is, proud of. “I fight often and anywhere and I haven’t ducked anyone”, is how she puts it.
I asked Holewyne which, among those thirty-three fights, was her toughest. Her reply was a bit surprising, “With all due respect to Anani, my toughest fight was my second bout with Sunshine Fettkether. Sunshine is a big, strong young woman who is there every minute of every round. You hit her with big punches and she keeps coming. With more experience, she’s going to be some fighter”. Fettkether had scored an eight round TKO over Holewyne in April ‘ 03 (Lisa remembers, “I hit her with maybe the best punch I ever threw, in the fifth round. I sat down on a right hand that split her gloves and landed flush and she just shook it off and kept coming. After that it was all her fight”) and a second bout was set for eight months later. In that one, for the first eight rounds, both women threw non-stop punches from bell to bell. In the last two rounds, Holewyne somehow found something extra, a “will to win, possibly; “heart”, maybe; or probably just plain “guts” and won both the ninth and tenth rounds and the fight along with the GBU Welterweight title.
Looking to April 24, I asked Lisa if Rijker reminded her of any other fighter she had fought. Holewyne is not someone who responds to questions with cliches or even an expected reply and when asked, she thinks about the question and gives a well considered answer, “Lucia reminds me a lot of Vicki Woods, who I fought three times early in my career. Vickie was a tough boxer, who really did know how to fight. She came into the ring with a lot of ring savvy. Rijker is very much like that, she knows how to fight, and when she climbs through the ropes, she’s in there to fight and that’s fine with me. Lucia won’t have to look for me, I’ll be right there in front of her, and I’d rather go out on my butt than chase around the ring for six rounds”. For the record, Holewyne’s three fights with Vickie Woods ended in a four round draw, followed by a six round win for Woods and, in the final bout, in November, 2000, a ten round decision for Holewyne, resulting in the WIBF Intercontinental Welterweight title.
Not only has Lisa Holewyne had plenty of quality ring experience, she has a realistic perspective on the sport to which she has devoted six years. She knows its a “tough haul”, with, usually, not a lot of money. “If you’re in it for the money, you’re in the wrong business”, say Lisa, who also knows about business, operating a successful carpet cleaning business in Austin, TX. She knows boxing is a sport that comes with bruises as part of the deal. She’s absorbed her share of bruises over six years and, at the very least, dispensed an equal of amount in return.
Is Rijker taking an easier fight on April 24? Is, as you hear from those “experts”, McCarter too slick a boxer for Rijker to chase around, at this point in Lucia’s career? That same theory continues that Holewyne is a more stationary fighter, she’ll be easier to hit, resulting in an “easier night” for Rijker. The flip side to that thinking is that Lisa Holewyne hasn’t been an “easy night” for anyone, at any time, in her thirty-three bout career. She certainly wasn’t an “easy night” for Sunshine Fettkether in that return bout, although it’s not hard to imagine that might have been the thinking in Fettkether’s camp. Sunshine was coming off a severe, eight round beating at the hands of hard punching Ann Wolfe, in what, in retrospect, was an ill-considered over-the-weight matchup. Logically, the Fettkether “team” was looking to get their fighter back on the winning track by matching up with someone Sunshine had already beaten; in effect, a, relatively, “easy night”. Lisa Holewyne proved to be anything but an “easy night” in what may have been the best women’s bout of 2003. Further, Lisa Holewyne hasn’t been an “easy night” for anyone: not Martin, not Anani, not Olson, not Sjauw, certainly not Fettkether and she won’t be an “easy night” for Rijker. She’ll be there, right in front of Rijker, ready to fight, ready to win, in what should be a terrific bout.
The fact that Manny Stewart handles Lucia Rijker and the fact that Stewart is also now associated with HBO as a commentator, gives hope that the network will, at long last, drop its retro-Luddite attitude towards Women’s boxing and provide some coverage of the Rijker/Holewyne bout. The sport deserves the coverage; Lucia Rijker, still one of the best fighters in that sport, deserves the coverage; and Lisa Holewyne, an athlete who merits the label “professional fighter” as much as anyone in that sport, certainly deserves the coverage; she’s much of what’s best about the sport of Women’s boxing.