London

Time out between rounds

Women are walking into boxing gyms and asking to be trained all over the capital. My Gym launched in Finchley 15 months ago, and though its founders didn’t advertise it to women at all, they say there are now 40 women training there, almost as many women as men. It’s a story echoed in every other top gym in London including The Peacock in Canning Town, one of the most respected boxing establishments in England.

The controversy that shadows boxing is infinitely various. Some liken it to cockfighting, others describe it as the noblest of sports. As every boxer worth her gloves will tell you, boxing is way down the list of most dangerous sports: rugby, motor-sports and horse-riding all carry a greater risk of fatality. True, but those sports don’t require their participants to sustain and deliver repeated blows to the brain. Feature continues

The British Boxing Board of Control’s chief medical officer, Dr Ashwin Patel, concludes that if you banned boxing, it would simply go underground: ‘Boxing is about regulating that desire to fight, and protecting the people who want to take part in it. People will always want to fight.’

And there’s the rub. Because the argument that women’s physical aggression is natural and uneradicable is far from self-evident. ‘It’s natural to me,’ says Shanee Martin. ‘I’m comfortable in the ring. I don’t fight people on the street and I’m not manly at all. But physical aggression is natural to me. Some men don’t like fighting either.’

Twenty years ago, Joyce Carol Oates described the female boxer as ‘a parody, she is a cartoon, she is monstrous’. Since then, films like ‘Million Dollar Baby’ and the bold presence of Laila [daughter of Muhammad] Ali have given the sport a much-needed injection of recognition, cash and glamour in America. But for some in the UK, it is still the case that a woman fighter isn’t just an incongruity, she is an oxymoron.

The best, and only, way to subvert that opinion, according to Brown and Martin, is through media exposure. Which is why they are thrilled that the forthcoming fight will be televised. ‘You want to see a good fight?’ asks Gary Logan, Brown’s trainer, ‘you watch Cathy take down Juliette Winter. It’ll be one hell of a tear-up.’ But ask why the friendly, diminutive Brown would want to tear up her good friend and sparring partner on live TV, and the most informative answer you’ll hear? ‘It’s boxing, love. It’s what I do.’

Juliette Winter fights Cathy Brown on Sept 24 at York Hall, Old Ford Rd, E2 (020 8980 2243).