London

Co-trainer Peter Mitchell tapes Martin's knuckles

But women’s boxing is currently experiencing a boom in the UK and, increasingly, the public are responding to it. In January 2005, the German TV channel ZDF reported that 6.57 million viewers tuned in to the broadcast of the women’s world championship fight between Regina Halmich and Marilyn Hernandez. On Sunday September 24, at York Hall in Bethnal Green, Cathy Brown will fight Juliette Winter for the Masters title that Winter won in Dagenham. Channel Five will broadcast the fight, on Friday September 29 at midnight, the UK’s first televised women’s bout.

Kathy ‘The Bitch’ Brown, who hails from Peckham, stands at an inch over five feet tall. The 36-year-old works and trains in the swanky Third Space in Piccadilly, which looks more like a club than a gym. Feature continues

Brown has been a pro boxer since 1998, but it’s only when she demonstrates the weird, egg-shaped muscle in her forearm that her profession becomes evident. That and her knuckles, which are enlarged, chapped and red.

‘I’ve got fighter’s hands for sure,’ she says, laconically.

‘I’ve broken bits off all my knuckles by this stage.’

Brown is ranked sixth superflyweight in the world, with a record of 15 wins and five losses in seven years. She is supremely uninterested in the sexism in the industry: ‘I’m used to it now. “Oh, you’re too pretty to fight,” they say. I’m an adult; I know what I’m doing and I train bloody hard to be good at my job. I can take care of myself.’

Like all pro boxers, Brown is in the gym six days a week. ‘I have a lot of anger,’ she confesses, ‘and boxing training really helps. You can come into the gym feeling really frustrated, and after an hour working the bags, it’s just evaporated.’

There’s a world of difference, though, between training and getting up, and falling down, in a ring. ‘I’ve had black eyes galore,’ Brown says cheerfully, ‘cuts and broken hands, broken lips, popped noses. I’ve been a mess after fights, but you don’t notice it at the time. The adrenalin blocks everything out except the desire to win. But it’s that moment, when you step into a ring, that decides whether you’re a fighter or not. Anyone can look like Ali on the bags, but it’s whether you’ve got a lion’s heart in the ring, whether you can be so exhausted it feels like there’s lead in your gloves, and still go out and fight, that’s what decides if you can box.’

She can’t remember her first punch (‘My memory did me a favour and blocked it out’), and neither can she recall why she wanted to fight, when she was a successful forensic photographer. ‘I’m just really physical, I suppose. I was kickboxing in ’98 when a promoter called and asked if I’d think about boxing. I tried it out and was hooked. The fights are amazing; when you’re standing there in front of 5,000 people, facing all your fears and using every ounce of your strength, it’s an almost spiritual experience.